



^ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Caught On The Fly 

Fugitive Notes Of Sport And 
Other Things 



By 




Printed for the writer by 

THE BRITTON PRINTING COMPANY 

Cleveland, Ohio 

1908 



'^HARY of OONCTtss| C^\\ 

:) IwoCooles rtecti.rti? Il VA^ 

j OCT 21 ^y^B ' 



0«^ hundred and twenty copies 
of this book have been printed of 
which this copy is number = 




{J by the writer 



Copyrighted, igo8 
By Arthur Si. John Ne-ixiberry 



These trifl'nig sketches are 

dedicated to 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

as a sincere but painfully inadequate expression 

of the honor in ichich he is held 

h' the luriter 



Contents 

PAGE 

Preamble 1 

The Charm of the Wild 3- 4 

Impressions of a Tenderfoot 7- 10 

Munising Bay '-^1" 28 

A Tenderfoot in Colorado 29- 51 

M3' Best Catch 53- 60 

Surgery and Medicine 61- 62 

An Ohio Trout Stream 63- 73 

On The Manistee 75- 81 

Various Notions 83- 97 

Fields and Pastures New 99-118 

Grilse on a Trout Rod 119-122 

After Caribou Again 125-132 

Some Black Bass 133-135 

On Guides 137-143 

Trout I Have Met 145-149 

Grilse and Other Fish 151-154 

Disappointment 155-165 

Some Failures 1 67-177 

Fish and Game Hogs 179-184 

Other Fish on the Fly 185-189 

Various Small Game 191-202 

The Florida Keys 203-212 

Log of the Mystery 213243 

An Indian Mound 245-252 

Winter in Nassau 253-280 

The Song of the Spear 281-284 

Practical Suggestions ' 287-298 

Horn Measurements 299-300 

My Biggest Fish 303-306 



Pictures 



PAGE 

Frontispiece— The Whole Outfit Title 

Young Bull Moose — 1 5 

Starting Out 9 

Young Bull Elk— 1 11 

Young Bull Elk— 2 l.j 

Blacktail Buck— 1 17 

Bull Elk— 2 23 

Whitetail Buck— 2 27 

Bull Elk 31 

Bull Elk— 1 39 

Young Bull Moose — 2 45 

Bull Moose— 3 55 

Castalia Brook — 1 65 

Photograph by C. C. Bolton. 

Castalia Brook — 2 67 

Photograph by C. C. Bolton. 

Castalia Brook — 3 71 

Photograph by C. C. Bolton. 

About Ready to Come 77 

Photograph by S. B. Newberry. 

Trout and Grayling 79 

Photograph by S. B. Newberry. 

Peto 85 

Kingfish 93 

A Good Strike 101 

Bull Moose 103 

Two Bull Moose 107 

Caribou Stag— 1 109 

Caribou Stag — 2 '. 113 

Caribou Stag— 3 115 

Caribou, in Velvet— 1 123 

Caribou, in Velvet — 2 127 



Pictures — Continued 

PAGE 

Caribou, in Velvet — 3 131 

Newfoundland Guide 139 

Temagami Guides 141 

Fontinalis — Manistee 147 

A Big Pike 153 

Photograph by S. B. Newberry. 

Sea Trout and Brook Trout 157 

Sea Trout and Grilse 163 

Lake and Speckled Trout 187 

Blacktail Buck— 2 195 

Whitetail Buck— 3 199 

A Grouper 205 

Hynnis Cubensis 209 

Catch at Alligator Light 215 

A Shark— Free 219 

A Shark— Hooked 225 

A Shark — Landed 231 

Spearing Crayfish 237 

Bull Moose— 1 249 

Our House 255 

From Fort Fincastle 257 

On Salt Key 259 

Three Kingfish 265 

Amberjack and Kingfish 273 

Barracuda 277 

Bull Moose— 2 285 

Mountain Sheep— 1 291 

Mountain Sheep — 2 295 

Mountain Sheep — 3 297 

Fifty Pound Kingfish 301 

Whitetail Buck— 1 305 



Preamble 



MANY of the following notes have appeared from time to 
time in ''Forest and Stream'' and I am indebted to that 
journal for permission to reproduce them. In order to 
cover more fully the ground actually traversed, most of the published 
sketches have been expanded, and a number of new chapters have 
been added. 

The pictures are from photographs by the writer (though the 
bulb has often been squeezed by a proxy), except where credit has 
been given to others. The frequent appearance of his own image 
should be ascribed to a desire for a gauge of size, for comparison, 
and not to personal vanity. All of these photographs are repro- 
duced without retouching or alteration of any kind. The game and 
fish are personal trophies, unless otherwise stated, and the yardstick 
appearing with some of the heads will show approximate dimensions. 

These notes cover a period of fifteen years or more, during 
which length of time almost any one must learn something, so my 
conclusions have doubtless been modified from time to time. This 
will account for any contradictions or inconsistencies which may 
appear in these pages. 

1 have had rather more outdoor life and sport than most of the 
toilers in the great workshop called the United States, so my modest 
experiences may be interesting and helpful to some of the less lucky 
in this respect. If this should not prove to be the case it has at 
least been pleasant to recall them and not bad fun to write them 
out. What is stated as fact is scrupulously accurate, but my 
opinions are of course of uncertain value. 
Cleveland, May 1st, 1908. 




The Charm Of The Wild 

HAT is the charm of the wild; that 
deep seated and powerful craving 
which makes us willing and eager to 
surrender comforts and refinements, 
that in town seem indispensable, to 
wear rough clothes, eat coarse food 
from a tin plate, endure cold, heat, 
storm, privation and fatigue; work 
day after day, for nothing, harder than we ever do for 
pay; delight in it all and long to get back to it again 
and again? 

First, it is different. How tired we all get of our 
every-day surroundings, of skyscrapers, elevators and 
trolley cars, of paved streets, plumbers and newspapers, 
of stenographers and bills. In camp all these vanish 
from memory as if they never had been, and life is 
made over again with impressions and purposes, all 
new and fresh, that restore our exhausted beings as a 
change of crop restores worn out land. 

Then it is simple. Modern life has grown intol- 
erably complex, burdened with a multitude of artificial 
needs, and we toil day and night for Lowell's "cap and 
bells." How sweet it is to come down to the strict 
necessary and cease the never ending struggle for things 
of no real importance. 



THE CHARM OF THE WILD 

Last and greatest, it is free. Civilized man is 
fenced in and out by countless barriers of custom and 
habit, tied by conventional bonds stronger, tighter and 
harder to break than those of the civil, criminal or 
moral law. In the wilds these fetters drop off and man 
concerns himself with realities and lets appearances 
go. How good it is to go for a month without a look- 
ing glass, to wear clothes only for warmth, to sit or lie 
when and where you please, without caring for the 
crease of your trousers or the hang of your coat, to take 
food for hunger and rest for fatigue, want what you 
really need and have it, do what you want to, where 
you want to and when you want to. Ah! Que c'est beau 
d'etre librel How good it is to be free. 





^ 



5: 
5q 



Impressions Of A Tenderfoot 



Forest and Stream, Dec. 8, 1894. 







ffY^^^Ui 




>J^ 


[1 


^^R 


S 



"TENDERFOOT" I understand to 
be one born in the East and who for 
the first time treads the slopes of the 
Rocky Mountains. I believe that 
mere transit on a through express, or 
even a stay at Colorado Springs or 
Manitou, does not relieve one of the 
contemptuous appellation. To lose 
this epithet one born east of, say Kansas City, must 
leave the paths and the garb in which he has been wont 
to walk, and immerse himself in the vast spaces of the 
West. It does not seem to matter whether he mines, 
ranches, fishes or hunts big game, but personal ex- 
perience of ranges, mesas, gulches, sage brush, buttes 
and bronchos is essential. 

Having been born in the State which has suc- 
ceeded Virginia in bearing the title of "Mother of 
Presidents," and to which the beautiful but unsatis- 
factory buckeye has given its common name, I had only 
seen the great West during various business errands, 
generally connected with the fruitless atterrtpt to make 
the sanguine children of the setting sun carry out con- 
tracts to repay Eastern capital, or to find why similar 



IMPRESSIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 

capital, like some of the rivers that flow from the east- 
ern slope of the Rockies, seemed to sink into the ground 
and be lost, doubtless fertilizing and refreshing the im- 
mediate course of flow but never reaching the sea- 
board. In this happy summer however, being tem- 
porarily free from such cares, I was invited to join a 
party to hunt and fish in the Elk Head Mountains, 
which lie in the northwestern corner of Colorado, and 
now can proudly boast a familiarity with many things 
and scenes which are peculiar to the boundless West. 
Whether the obnoxious name has really left me is still 
not a certainty, but as two big bull elk fell to my rifle, 
while my acclimated companions failed to get a single 
one, they seemed to believe that I was gaining at least 
a slight familiarity with the country. 

First on the list of my novel impressions comes 
acquaintance with the broncho. He is of mixed de- 
scent, on one side coming from the mustang and on the 
other from the eastern horse, but the proportions of 
blood must vary very greatly; still the type is distinct. 
He is generally small, perhaps averaging about eight 
hundred pounds, and seems to have no distinctive color 
or marking. Ordinarily he is a sleepy and biddable 
beast, who travels with his head down and exerts only 
as much effort as is absolutely necessary; but this gen- 
tleness and quiet simply give an opportunity for the 
storage of energy, and, on proper stimulus, this calm 

8 



IMPRESSIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 

and passive animal expends his accumulated force with 
terrific and tumultuous effects. 

Among our pack animals was a little pot-bellied 
brown horse who was one day plodding along under a 
pack of two hundred pounds, and seemed half asleep. 
Suddenly, for no reason that I could see, he concluded 
to get his pack off. Down went his head; up went his 
back; and a fine exhibition of genuine buck-jumping 
was begun without notice. When this did not loosen 
the well-tied squaw-hitch, he seemed to go absolutely 
mad. Screaming like a steam whistle he tore at the 
pack with his teeth, dashed against trees, reared, 
plunged and rolled, until finally the pack fell from 
him. Then, his aim being accomplished, a perfect 
calm succeeded, and no objection was made to the re- 
placing of the pack or to carrying it afterward. 

The broncho is a creature of the wilds, and is equal 
to any difficulty which they present. On my first day 
we rode forty miles over a range, with no road or path 
beyond an occasional game trail. We went through 
spruce forests, over fallen timber, up steep and stony 
mountain sides and down again, and the orders to me 
were: "Leave your rein loose and let your horse go." 
I followed these instructions literally, although when 
my broncho w^as descending slopes of about forty-five 
degrees, and jumping over big logs on the down grade, 
it seemed reasonably certain that we were both going 

10 




Young Bull Elk -I 



IMPRESSIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 

to everlasting smash, and one escape did not seem to 
furnish any reason why the next peril should be safely 
passed. On such a slope I remember coming to a 
couple of fallen trees lying across each other, perhaps 
two feet high on the upper side and four or five on the 
lower. My black carefully examined the obstacle, and 
then coolly leaped it, alighted in a sitting position, slid 
about ten feet, brought up and went calmly on. Look- 
ing back I saw my brother's horse go through precisely 
the same performance, and as he leaped the pair 
seemed to be going directly into eternity. 

Nearly all our hunting was done from the saddle, 
in spite of the tremendously rough nature of the coun- 
try. Several of the horses were the perfection of shoot- 
ing ponies, and seemed to actually hold their breath 
when the rifle was lifted for a shot. All of them would 
stand, provided the long reins were thrown down and 
allowed to hang, and it was a matter of only a moment 
to dismount. When game was known to be near we 
generally left our horses and hunted on foot, returning 
to them after success or failure. 

Second only in force and novelty to the broncho 
impression was that of the country where we camped. 
To reach it we had come eighty miles by stage, passing 
through a barren land, where only the immediate 
valleys of the rivers were fertile, and had ridden forty 
miles, all the latter being through sagebrush except 



IMPRESSIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 

while actually crossing the ridges, until we were within 
six miles of camp. There we came to the edge of the 
so-called "Park country," a region heavily timbered 
with magnificent spruces, the forest being frequently 
divided by open glades, varying from fifty feet to a 
mile or more in width, covered with grass and flowers 
and dotted with single trees or small clumps of timber. 
It was a country of running brooks and singing birds, 
and especially fitted for game of all kinds. Out of it 
rose magnificent mountain peaks of purple-brown trap, 
giving grandeur to its beauty. The whole region 
seemed to have been laid out by a most skillful land- 
scape gardener, on a colossal scale and regardless of 
expense, and had an air of finish that seemed incredible 
in an absolute wilderness, forty miles from anywhere. 
None of this timbered country can be less than nine 
thousand feet above the sea, and its fertility, as con- 
trasted with the barrenness of the lower country, is 
doubtless caused by the accumulation of snow upon the 
mountains, whose gradual melting keeps only the up- 
per levels moist. 

The mule deer (Cervus macrotis) abounds in this 
park country, and we rarely saw less than thirty in any 
one day. There seemed to be two distinct varieties, 
differing decidedly in shape and color. ' Among the 
glades around our camp we found slender, long-limbed 
bucks, decidedly light brown in color, and with the 

13 



IMPRESSIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 

face a nearly uniform mouse gray. In the scrub oak 
near the edge of the desert the deer were much larger, 
shorter and thicker, lighter and grayer in color, and 
with a very light gray patch, almost white, across the 
face. Our guides made a distinction between the gray 
bucks and the "bald-faced" bucks, and insisted that the 
two types always kept at dilTerent levels, as we found 
them. 

Where elk can be found, however, one thinks but 
little of deer, and we were chiefly in pursuit of the 
greater and rarer game. For the first week after reach- 
ing camp, which was early in September, they could 
only be found in the dense spruce forest close to the 
mountain peaks. Later they seemed to travel more, 
and the sound of their trumpet became not uncommon. 
When the bull is young, and the call is heard at a dis- 
tance, it sounds singularly like a human whistle; heard 
closer at hand, or from an older animal, the note is 
more harsh and strident. The old bulls bellow in deep 
tones not very unlike those of a domestic bull. For- 
tune sent me the first shot at an adult male, and re- 
warded it with a handsome twelve-point head, with 
rather light antlers — the animal being still young. My 
great prize came on the last day's hunt. 

Two of us had crossed the ridge and were in the 
aspen timber about two miles from camp, when we 
heard a young bull call at a considerable distance down 

14 




^^^ 




Young Bull Elk— 2 



IMPRESSIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 

the mountain. Leaving our horses we started toward 
the sound on foot, but after walking a mile or more we 
heard the call again on our left and high up the slope. 
We then separated, my brother keeping on, and I went 
back toward the horses, and had nearly reached them 
when suddenly an elk appeared on my right, three 
hundred yards up the hill. He was strolling slowly, 
parallel with my own course, and occasionally taking 
a bite of grass. Instantly I started toward him, keep- 
ing behind trees as well as possible, and running as fast 
as a defective lung, an elevation of ten thousand feet, 
and a pretty steep hill would permit. While running 
I saw that this bull was followed by other elk, march- 
ing slowly in single file and appearing one by one from 
the thick timber. Knowing that the large bull is usu- 
ally at the rear end of a procession of this kind, and 
having already a better head than the first one had, I 
determined to wait and take my chance of a big fellow, 
so, entirely out of breath and tremendously excited, 
I dropped behind a rock about a hundred and fifty 
yards from the line and waited. Eight cows, a calf and 
another young bull passed me one by one, and at last a 
mighty head bearing a huge pair of antlers appeared 
between the aspen trunks, and in a moment the mon- 
arch of the herd stepped into a little glade before me 
and strolled slowly across it. As his head appeared I 
sighted just in front of it, and when the ivory bead of 

i6 




Blacktail Buck— I 



IMPRESSIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 

the Lyman sight showed fairly back of the shoulder 
pulled the trigger. The bull did not even start or 
flinch. Then I forgot my breathlessness, my excite- 
ment and everything else but that elk. In an instant a 
second cartridge was in place, a steady aim taken, and 
at the shot the great bull dropped to his knees, but rose 
at once and continued his steady walk. So he kept on 
walking and I kept on shooting until the aspens on the 
other side of the glade concealed him. Then I dropped 
on the rock and sat and gasped from excitement and ex- 
ertion together for at least ten minutes. 

When breath came back I walked slowly up the 
hill to the point of his vanishing, and only a few yards 
beyond found the great elk stone dead and with four 
bullets clean through him. The orifice of exit was 
scarcely larger than that of entrance, and the balls had 
evidently lost but little velocity in passing through 
nearly two feet of flesh and bone, showing the great 
power of the .45-90-300 cartridge. 

We had no means of weighing or exactly measur- 
ing this animal, but estimated his weight at one thou- 
sand pounds, or over, his height at the withers over five 
feet and the weight of his head and horns at about sev- 
enty-five pounds. The horns were very long and re- 
markably heavy, having the usual twelve regular 
points, and three large and four small reversed points, 
so that he could properly be called a nineteen-point 

18 



IMPRESSIONS OF A TENDERFOOT 

head. Having a kodak in camp I was able to get a 
good photograph of "the entire outfit," which Western 
expression corresponds strictly to the Yankee "the 
whole kit and caboodle." 




19 



Munising Bay 





d 



|N THE south coast of Lake Superior, 
forty miles east of Marquette and 
just west of the famous "Pictured 
Rocks," the shore curves in sharply- 
making a deep and broad harbor, 
across the mouth of which lies Grand 
Island. The bay is almost completely 
landlocked, gives shelter from all 
winds, and is well known as a refuge for vessels from 
Lake Superior's gales. In size, outline of shores and 
character of vegetation on them, it singularly resembles 
an Adirondack lake, and is as beautiful as any of them, 
peerless Placid perhaps excepted. 

Back in the fifties the charcoal iron industry flour- 
ished here and quite a town sprang up on the east side; 
but the industry ceased to be profitable, the furnaces 
were abandoned, the houses deserted one by one, and 
for over thirty years no one has lived there but a few 
fishermen and the keeper of the government light. 
Within the last year, however, parties owning large 
tracts of timber lands have determined to develop their 
resources; a railroad has been organized and is under 
construction; large tanneries, stave and hoop mills, and 
other manufactories are being erected; docks, switches, 
a bank, stores and dwellings are rapidly taking shape; 



MUNISING BAY 

a daily paper has been established, a city organized, 
and the vigorous tide of life has invaded this once 
peaceful region. I suppose all this is in the line of 
progress, and it certainly is for the good of the land 
owners, but it is now only a question of time when 
much of the peculiar charm must vanish, never to re- 
turn. 

The Anna River Club, an organization largely 
composed of Marquette gentlemen, has been estab- 
lished for several years at the south end of the bay, just 
where the little Anna River joins it, and has built a 
cosy and comfortable log house for their accommoda- 
tion and that of the happy mortals who are invited to 
partake of their well-known hospitality and share their 
peculiar privileges. It was my good fortune to be one 
of those favored individuals on the invitation of Mr. 
Fayette Brown, of Cleveland, well known as a 
thorough business man, expert fisherman and natural- 
ist and the best of good fellows, and on one of the 
golden days of early September of last year I began 
an experience not soon to be forgotten. 

The bay is bordered by a belt of shallow water, 
exquisitely clear and clean, and deepens very gradually 
for about seventy-five yards from shore, where it is ten 
or twelve feet to the bottom. Thence it plunges ofif very 
rapidly, reaching a depth of fifty to one hundred feet 
within a few rods. Along this ridge or shoulder flour- 




Bull Elk~2 



MUNISING BAY 

ishes a growth of water weeds, rising nearly to the sur- 
face and broken into clumps, promontories and de- 
pressions in and around which the trout lie. The fish- 
erman, anchoring his boat according to the direction 
of the wind on one side or the other of the belt of 
weeds, lets it drift within good casting distance and 
then uses his fly or bait with perfect convenience. 

A favorite and fatal method of fishing is to use 
rather a large hook, well covered with angle worms and 
with a split shot at the base, make a long cast with a 
strong fly-rod and then gradually draw in the line 
through the rings. When the line tightens a strike is 
apt to develop a very big trout and considerable sport 
will ensue before he gets near the landing net. Al- 
though a fly-fisherman by pre-disposition and inheri- 
tance it seemed to me best to follow the local customs; 
but, after having messed with worms, strained my rod 
and nearly put a hook through my ear, I determined to 
catch those trout on the fly or go without. The hated 
worms and bullet came ofif, a leader rigged with a 
coachman, Montreal and Parmacheene on No. 4 hooks 
took its place, and I began diligent work. Several 
spots were tried without success, but finally, near the 
mouth of the little river, a place was found where the 
weeds were much broken into clumps and there I took 
my first trout on the fly. After this I always began 
fishing at this point and moved only when nothing de- 

24 



MUNISING BAY 

veloped, and this was not uncommon, for these trout 
were especially freaky and uncertain in their tastes. 
Many a time I have cast diligently for hours without 
a rise while the surface around me showed no sign. 
Suddenly there would be a great splash as a two- 
pounder left the water close by and then for an hour 
fish would rise all about me, while never a one would 
touch the fly. But patient waiting and work, such as 
my old friend Fuller of Meacham Lake calls "stick- 
to-it-iveness," would always win in the end, and when 
success came it was always abundant. 

By far the most successful fly, though I tried about 
every usual pattern, was the plain coachman. This 
would be selected from the cast by fully four fish out 
of five, and they generally seemed to prefer the upper 
dropper of my three flies, I suppose because this fly was 
more on the surface and moved most naturally. When 
trout would not come to the surface at all I sometimes 
caught them by making a long cast, letting the flies sink 
quite deeply, and then very slowly and jerkily reeling 
them in. I saw almost no small fish, rarely taking one 
of less than a pound, while the usual size was rather 
larger, and fish of two or three pounds, or even more, 
are common. They seem to gain a certain size before 
venturing out into the open water of the bay. All of 
these fish, even the largest I took, which weighed three 
and three-quarter pounds and rose fairly, were slim 

25 



MUNISING BAY 

and shapely, and most magnificently vigorous, instead 
of being comparatively heavy and logy, as I have found 
most large trout to be in comparison with fish of one 
pound or under. Evidently the normal size of the 
Lake Superior trout is very large, and he does not begin 
to grow thick and heavy until he reaches four or five 
pounds at least. Of course the open water, abun- 
dance of room and absence of obstructions, give a 
great advantage to the rod, and with patience and care 
one should land almost every fish hooked, no matter 
how heavy and strong. 

These big fellows take more than "a slight turn of 
the wrist" to hook them. One must strike sharp and 
hard to set the big hook deep in their bony 
jaws. When this habit is once formed it is very diffi- 
cult to get rid of, so I always strike too hard for small 
fish. We are all prone to exaggerate the resistance 
made by a hooked fish and the time required to com- 
pletely subdue him, and a spring balance and stop 
watch would change our views as to both particulars. 
The strain against the hand is of course magnified very 
many times by the leverage of the rod, and the time 
consumed is similarly multiplied by the imagination. 
I think that a fish can rarely exert a force equal to the 
dead pull of his own weight, and that two or three min- 
utes for each pound of weight should be the out- 
side limit of time necessary to reduce any of the sal- 

26 




Whitetail Buck — 2 



MUNISING BAY 



monidae to entire subjection. These estimates are of 
course only approximate, and I shall try to verify them 
by actual tests when the next opportunity comes. 




28 



A Tenderfoot In Colorado 



Forest and Stream, Nov. 14, 1896. 




HIS is an attempt to describe an ex- 
pedition after elk, deer and other 
game to the extreme northwest cor- 
ner of Colorado. It is not intended 
as a manual for experienced sports- 
men or to take the place of Van 
Dyke's "Still Hunter" and Roose- 
velt's graphic books, nor will the 
skilled Western hunter find in it any suggestions by 
which he may guide his career. It is a record of the 
personal experience of a tenderfoot, who had shot some 
deer and caught some trout in less favored regions, and 
who writes with the earnest desire, which will doubt- 
less prove fruitless, to give his own kind of sportsmen 
some idea of the charm of the wild portion of the West- 
ern country and of the pleasures which may still be 
found there. A portion of my experiences have been 
already published, "Impressions of a Tenderfoot," For- 
est and Stream, December 8, 1894, but I hope that a 
more detailed account will not be uninteresting. Should 
it prove so, the fault will be in my lack of ability as a 
word painter and not in the real charm of the things I 
am trying to depict. 



29 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

It was in the fall of 1894, and I was invited to join 
a party already established in Routt county, Colorado, 
and reported to be camped on the eastern slope of 
"Anita" or "Bear's Ears" Peak in the Elkhead Moun- 
tains. My personal outfit, which proved entirely satis- 
factory, was about as follows : 

One Winchester repeater, model 1886, with Ly- 
man sights. 

Two hundred cartridges, .45-90-300, solid ball. 
(Too many.) 

One stout jackknife. One compass. 

One suit heavy woolen clothing. 

One pair heavy woolen trousers, extra. 

Two pairs of heavy shoes, with soft hob-nails. 

Lot of heavy and medium weight flannels. 

Two heavy sweaters, much more useful than an 
overcoat. 

Heavy flannel shirts and worsted socks. 

Brown slouch hat. 

One pair canvas leggings. 

Two pairs heavy dogskin gloves for riding. 

Camp mattress, with cover and straps to roll. 

Two pairs heavy blankets; one pair made into a 
sleeping bag. 

One small feather pillow. 

Cigars, matches, etc. 

30 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

One canvas war bag, about 2 ft. 6 in. x 4 ft. 6 in. 
Catch all. 

One possible sack, i ft. x 2 ft., for small articles. 

There were to be three of us in the field and we 
had contracted with Mr. J. W. Baxter, of Glenwood 
Springs, Colorado, for the general outfit needed; this 
consisted of about the following, and was all furnished 
at a fixed and very reasonable price per day: 

Mr. Baxter himself as chief guide. 

Wallace Baxter, guide and horse-wrangler. 

Cale, cook — I do not know his last name. 

These men were admirable in their respective de- 
partments and were individually a fine lot of fellows. 
They were as free and equal as the Declaration of In- 
dependence. Ready, able and willing to do the work 
they had contracted for, but not considering that they 
were in any way inferior to the other American citi- 
zens who formed the party of the second part (and 
they were exactly right), faithful, untiring, experi- 
enced, good-natured, quiet and soft-spoken, not one us- 
ing liquor or tobacco, on the whole as good men as 
could have been found, if not better than any others. 
Cale is worthy of a chapter to himself. A big, burly 
fellow, with a great red mustache hanging over his 
mouth, white slouch hat on the back of his head, 
leather-fringed chapparejos and Mexican spurs. When 
he bestrode a broncho, swung a riata in his right hand, 

32 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

held the reins high in his left, cowboy fashion, and sent 
his bucking, squealing mount over logs, brush and 
rocks, he looked more like a bandit than one of the 
peaceful profession. But how he could cook! Shall 
I ever forget his blacktail steaks, his elk soup, and last, 
but not least, his flapjacks — just the size of the long- 
handled frying-pan, and turned over by a toss into the 
air. Nothing was ever better, if so good. 

But I have got away from the outfit, and must 
come back to business again. 

Three tents, about ten by eight feet; sheet iron 
cook stove, four folding chairs, two camp-stools, table 
(this consisted of only the top and cross pieces, the legs 
being cut anyw^here and driven into the ground until 
level). Pots, pans, kettles, etc., packed in stove. 
Knives, forks, plates, cups, etc., for six. One hundred 
dollars' worth of supplies, which we paid for. Pork, 
flour, potatoes, canned goods, jellies, spices, caviar, 
pickles, beef extract, etc. No whisky; you do not want 
it at that altitude, except for medicine. The beef ex- 
tract is much better. 

Twenty-four bronchos, with saddles, pack-saddles, 
etc. Of this lot of horses six were constantly in use un- 
der saddle, fourteen carried packs and four were extra 
horses. No feed is carried. At night the horses are sim- 
ply unpacked or unsaddled and turned loose to find 
their own food and rest. One of them carries a bell, and 

33 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLOR.ADO 

the bunch can generally be trusted to stay pretty close 
together and not to stray very far away. This trust, in 
the latter particular, is not always deserved, and then 
the guides have a big job on hand and traveling must 
be suspended until the drove is found and driven back 
into the corral. These horses are half wild and will 
rarely submit to be caught singly; so the first job after 
going into camp, when the tents have been pitched and 
the fire lighted, is to build an inclosure of brush, limbs, 
ropes and other obstacles, into which the herd may be 
driven when wanted. 

The pack horses when traveling carry about one 
hundred and fifty pounds each, sometimes more, and 
string out into a long line in Indian file. At the head 
of the procession goes the chief guide, leading the way, 
with a keen eye for known landmarks and for proba- 
bilities of wood, water and grass. After him comes 
the pack train, each horse following in the footsteps of 
the one preceding and making the same turns and 
twists. At the rear comes the horse-wrangler, driving 
up the laggards and looking out for accidents, and 
only too apt to be surrounded by a blue and glittering 
cloud of strong language, which would seem censur- 
able to a novice, but is soon realized to be the almost 
necessary accompaniment of the position, human and 
horse nature being such as they are. At varying posi- 
tions in the line are the ''cook and the crew of the cap- 

34 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

tain's gig," helping over difficult places, galloping 
ahead after game or delayed in its pursuit, but never 
very far from the main body. The train goes at a walk, 
and makes no detours for hills or valleys, but crosses 
everything as it comes. It will travel about twenty- 
five miles a day over rough and trackless country, and 
do but little more on a road, if it ever gets to one, which 
it does not often do, for there are no roads in this coun- 
try except along certain main lines of communication 
and very far apart. It is an absolutely wild region, in 
which the only paths are those made by the game in 
their journeyings for centuries. So over every divide 
and along every stream and valley you generally see a 
well-trodden and distinct path, often beaten down some 
inches below the surface of the ground, and this follows 
the easiest course there is to be found. Perhaps there 
is no easy course at all, but the trail can be depended 
upon to take the best there is to be had. 

But this has been a tremendously long preface, 
and I fear the personal adventures will be a small tail 
to so big a kite; still perhaps the preface may be useful 
while the main work will be neither useful nor orna- 
mental ; in any event let me come back to my story. 

From Colorado Springs we, my brother Wolcott 
and myself, took the evening train west on* the Denver 
& Rio Grande, and early next morning landed at Wol- 
cott, in the canyon of the Eagle River and on the west- 

35 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

ern side of the Continental Divide. Having some hours 
to wait for the stage, we got out our fly-rods and 
succeeded in extracting a few trout from the beautiful 
river; these I dressed and the obliging landlady cooked 
them for our dinner. This was my first introduction to 
the black-spotted Rocky Mountain trout (Salmo pur- 
puratus, Goode), and he is a fine fellow and worth 
knowing. Quite different in his habits from the fon- 
tinalis, at least in my small experience, both in the parts 
of the stream he is found in and the character of his 
rise to the fly; but a dashing and vigorous fighter and 
very good on the table. We got nothing of any size 
here, but afterward, in the canyon of the Yampa below 
Steamboat Springs, took plenty of them up to two 
pounds in weight, and were sure that longer effort than 
we could give would have developed mighty ones from 
the magnificent pools of that glorious trout stream. 

At noon we climbed into the stage which was to 
take us to Steamboat Springs, about eighty miles due 
north, and to consume a day and a half in doing it. 
The vehicle was what is called a mud wagon — seats 
for six, a cotton top, the bottom filled with mail bags 
and our own traps until places for feet were hard to 
find, and harnessed to two bronchos. Following a 
small creek valley we slowly climbed for hours until 
the divide between the Eagle and Grand rivers was 
surmounted, and then rattled down to the Grand Val- 

3^ 



A TENDERFOOT IX COLORADO 

ley at a speed and over roads which seemed to me any- 
thing but safe. Realizing my greenness I had self- 
control enough to hang on and keep my mouth shut, 
while the driver whirled us down the grade and around 
curves with a clear drop of a hundred feet (and it 
looked like a thousand) on the outer side of the road 
and within a few inches of the wheels. I am pretty 
sure that fellow knew he had a tenderfoot on board, 
and wanted to extract an appeal for more care; if so, 
he did not do it, mainly because I realized that we must 
all go together, if anybody went, and that he was prob- 
ably no more anxious to be smashed than I was. We 
crossed the Grand River at the end of this trying grade, 
and then followed its course downward for several 
miles, over a succession of ups and downs as we crossed 
little valleys at right angles to the stream, finally bring- 
ing up about six o'clock at a little hotel on a small 
lateral creek. I hurried to get my rod together and, 
walking some distance up the stream, managed to get 
four nice mountain trout before dark, though the last 
one was taken after the stars were well out. These 
made a capital breakfast next morning, and were a 
good preparation for the long and slow climb to the 
top of the divide between the Grand and Yampa (or 
Bear) river valleys. Once over this summit, we fol- 
lowed the Yampa from almost its first beginnings until 
at Steamboat Springs it makes a great bend to the west, 

37 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

being then a full-grown river. We were constantly 
tempted along its course by glimpses of most entranc- 
ing trout holes, growing finer as the stream grew 
larger, but had self-control enough to resist temptation 
and keep on. This was a great mistake, and I here 
want to lay down the general principle that, when a 
trout fisherman finds good trout water, his highest duty 
is at once to fish that water. Any other course will 
bring only sorrow and unavailing remorse to his de- 
clining years, and, like Kipling's "Mugger of the 
Ghaut," he will be always haunted by visions of the 
joys that escaped him. 

Somewhere about noon, as we were traveling 
through Egeria Park, came our first sight of big game, 
a series of black points on the sky-line of a ridge a 
mile or two ofif, which the glass showed to be a band of 
some dozen antelope. It was hopeless to get near them 
in that commanding situation, so we did not try it. The 
country along our entire journey was decidedly arid, 
having few trees except close to the stream, the low 
hills being boulder-strewn and as little cultivable as an 
ash pit, but the river was beautiful, the odd buttes of 
trap rock were striking, and now and then we caught a 
view of rugged and distant mountains to the westward, 
which were grand. The air was glorious, the sunshine 
superb, and the little bronchos behaved pretty well for 
bronchos, so the day's ride was a pleasure. 

38 




^fSn' 



Bull Elk— I 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

Steamboat Springs, which we reached about six 
o'clock, lies just west of the main divide of the Rockies, 
and we could see the trail along and over the moun- 
tains to the eastward by which North Park is reached. 
We were too tired to try the famous hot baths of nat- 
ural spring water, and a rather poor supper and very 
hard beds were most welcome, A very large and fine 
elk head hung in the hotel office, but the horns did not 
look just right in color and, after some inquiry, I found 
that they had been picked up in the woods, stained to 
about the proper color, and fitted to the scalp of a cow 
elk. I was told that preparing heads for sale in this 
manner was a regular and profitable business, espe- 
cially since elk with fine heads were so much more 
rarely shot of late years. 

At Steamboat Springs Baxter met us, bringing 
saddle horses for ourselves and a couple of pack horses 
for the luggage, and we started at six o'clock the next 
morning on our forty-mile ride to camp. That ride is 
one of the most pleasant and one of the most painful 
of my memories. Until toward noon we occasionally 
followed what might by extreme courtesy be called a 
road, and might in places be traveled by wheeled vehi- 
cles without great danger; then we took to the woods, 
to game trails, to fallen timber, to precipitous hillsides 
covered with boulders, logs and brush, and to all sorts 
of places which, to my ignorance, were absolutely im- 

40 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

passable to horses. Riding, as I had understood it, was 
out of the question, the only things to do were to let 
your reins loose, hang to the high pommel, balance as 
well as possible and pray. All these I did as well as 
several other things, but no ground seemed to make any 
difference to our bronchos. They climbed, jumped 
and slid with perfect success and apparent unconcern, 
doing as many impossible things and as easily as a trick 
bicycle rider. All this could not be done without fa- 
tigue to the rider, especially if, as in my own case, he 
had not touched a saddle for two years, and about the 
middle of the afternoon I was ready to sit down, — no, I 
had had sitting enough and to spare — to lie down and 
rest. But there was no hotel in that wilderness, the 
only supper and bed to be had were at the camp, and 
I had to bear it, though past grinning. Now the region 
was really mountainous, the higher ridges clothed with 
timber and the stream valleys luxuriantly green, even 
the lower ridges were covered with scrub oak and we 
frequently saw deer. About four we came out into 
California Park, an open, sagebrush-covered oval, 
about ten miles by five, through which the Elkhead 
Creek flows. Here antelope were abundant, and we 
must have seen a hundred while crossing the park. On 
its northerly side we came to a wall of timber, abruptly 
bordering the desert plain, and beyond it could see the 
double summit of the peak to which we were bound. 

41 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

I have not any very definite recollection of that last 
six miles through the trees. They were rough, tangled 
and tedious, and I was too tired to talk or think. When 
at last the welcome tents showed white through the 
trees and the journey was over I was almost too tired to 
know that rest was possible. If any man thinks me a 
weakling, let him try thirteen hours in the saddle and 
forty miles over mountains and then send me his re- 
vised opinion. 

Camp Buckhorn, as we named it, was pitched on 
the edge of a glade about two hundred yards in diam- 
eter and of irregular shape, traversed by a tiny moun- 
tain brook and surrounded by magnificent red spruces, 
some of them three feet through and over one hundred 
feet high. To the west the ground rose on a rapid slope 
for a mile or so, from w^hich there soared the twin sum- 
mits of "Bear's Ears," a precipitous mass of purple 
brown trap, with only a few cedars clinging to its crev- 
ices. The peak is supposed to be ten thousand five hun- 
dred feet in altitude, and our camp was somewhere 
near a thousand feet below the top. All around the 
peak was forest, regions of spruce alternating with the 
more open aspen trees, and all permeated by a maze of 
open glades, or "parks," of all sizes and shapes, and 
connected more or less. The air, rarefied by our near 
approach to heaven and perfumed with the fragrance 
of evergreens, was a constant cocktail; and the sun, 

42 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

through that clear atmosphere, had a radiant glory 
which made one want to shout and sing. I found no 
disagreeable symptoms result from the great altitude, 
except that one couldn't stop breathing, say to whistle 
a bar, without having to gasp a little to catch up with 
his supply of oxygen. The stimulating air made one 
feel equal to any exertion, but experience showed that 
uphill work must be taken slowly to avoid extreme, 
though temporary, exhaustion. 

A good supper and the heavy and dreamless sleep 
of fatigue made another man of me next morning. 
Baxter himself was assigned to take charge of the ten- 
derfoot and insure him a shot. There was an inch or so 
of snow on the ground when we started, though it did 
not lie there long. Following the stream downward 
for half a mile, we turned to the west, climbing the 
mountain through a succession of beautiful little parks. 
Not a mile from the camp we came on the first game, a 
blacktail doe and fawn cropping the grass at the edge 
of a little glade. The breeze blew from them to us, for 
one must hunt up wind, and we stood for two or three 
minutes and watched the pretty things at not over fifty 
yards off, and the clearness of the air made them seem 
much nearer. I do not shoot does mvself, and even a 
less scrupulous hunter would have found it hard to 
pull trigger at that family party; so, after having gazed 
our fill, we started them with a shout, not a shot, and 

43 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

they bounded off none the worse for us. We kept on 
into a heavy spruce forest, and I lost all sense of direc- 
tion, and followed blindly in the guide's footprints. 
Soon he began to seem interested, but said nothing, 
which was one of his habits, till he beckoned me up, 
pointed to the left and said, "There's an elk. Shoot it." 
I could not make out anything that looked like an ani- 
mal in that chaos of tree trunks and fallen logs, all gray 
and brown, but strained my eyes in the indicated direc- 
tion and finally made out that a grayish-brown ridge, 
just showing over a fallen tree, was the back of a cow 
elk, and that a dark knot just beyond was an eye turned 
full on us. The rifle went to my shoulder; I took one 
step to the left for a clearer view; the ridge and knot 
vanished; there was a tremendous crash in the timber, 
and I had missed my first chance. How I did mentally 
kick myself all the way back, for we saw no more elk, 
nothing but blacktail does and fawns, and that day's 
hunt was a failure. It was some consolation, however, 
to find that the others had done no better. 

The next day the guides took care of the other two 
hunters, and I only tramped round near the camp, try- 
ing to catch some trout out of the little stream, which 
falls below prevented, as I afterward discovered. 
Within half a mile of home I saw a dozen or more 
deer, all does and fawns, for the bucks were lower 
down, as we found later. The day after was one of 

44 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

great experience. Baxter and I traveled over nearly 
our former course and struck the trail of quite a band 
of elk. I was sent ofif to one side, leaving my horse with 
the guide, while he followed the trail. Presently came 
the crash among the trees, and a whole band of elk 
passed me at about a hundred yards ofif, giving no 
chance for a fair shot. I determined not to let them 
go without an effort, and started to follow the trail, 
which was very distinct, and led me down the mountain 
for a mile or so through dense forest. This ended at a 
little brook at the foot of the slope, bordered by a wide 
park, at the other side of which I made out a solitary 
cow elk. There was no cover for a stalk, and I had 
to try the shot, though the distance was fully six hun- 
dred yards, and I made a clean miss. Now, with all 
the confidence of a greenhorn, I determined not to 
again climb the mountain, but to follow the little 
stream until it intersected that on which our camp was 
located, as I knew it must, and then follow the latter 
home. This was well planned, but I did not know that 
the two streams ran nearly parallel, divided by a ridge, 
and came together five or six miles below the camp ; so 
I started down the valley. It was a delightful walk 
through a succession of parks, but began after an hour 
or so to seem pretty long, and I anxiously looked out 
for the home stream. Suddenly, from among some fal- 
len timber to the left and above my trail, there sprang 

46 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

to his feet a splendid buck aroused from his day sleep, 
and stood looking straight at me. In an instant the 
rifle was swung into position, and at the shot the buck 
simply let go everything and dropped in his tracks. 
It did not take long to cover the eighty yards of hill 
that lay between us, and I found him stone dead, with 
the bullet mark just between his eyes. It took some 
time to bleed him and tie a white handkerchief in a 
conspicuous place to find him by, and, when I had got 
started again and finally found the stream sought for, 
daylight had nearly gone and a strange country was all 
around me. It was evident that to get to camp in the 
dark was practically impossible, so reconciling myself 
to the inevitable I picked out a knoll where there was 
a supply of fallen aspen timber and prepared for a soli- 
tary camp. The first requisite was a fire, and I found 
only two matches in my box. These must be made to 
do the work. So I got together a lot of deadwood, 
carefully cut shavings and arranged the pile, lighted 
the first match with the greatest care, and made a suc- 
cess at the first try. 

Soon there was a fine crackling fire, and it was 
good company as I perched on a pile of brush and be- 
gan to figure things out. Here we were a long way 
from camp, but on the right stream, and able to get 
home when daylight came again. Good. There was 
no supper, but a couple of cigars were still on hand and 

47 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

the buck would make a good breakfast, after which I 
was sure camp could be reached all right. Good again. 
There was abundance of fuel, and a big pile was soon 
gathered, a lot of bushes cut and piled for a bed and 
into a mound to keep off the wind, and I settled down 
for the night. The sun went down and the stars came 
out, and there is no denying that it was lonesome, and 
that there seemed to be a great deal of space all around 
me. One could not help thinking that his proper place 
was in civilization, and what a fool he had been to 
travel two thousand miles just to get lost in the Rock- 
ies; but the thing was done, there was no help for it, 
and one must just make the best of it. The hours 
crawled along, and the fire made me drowsy, so that 
somewhere about eleven o'clock I was at least three- 
quarters, possibly entirely, asleep. A little distance up 
hill from me ran a deep-trodden game trail, and sud- 
denly I was started broad awake by a loud "Woof" 
from that direction. Nothing could be distinctly made 
out, but a big black mass a few yards away gave an- 
other "Woof" and then made off into the shadows. 
Did I investigate him? Not much! I hugged my 
rifle and my fire, and was only too glad to give him 
the rest of the State, and thankful that the grizzly did 
not need me also. 

It was only a little while after this that I heard a 
rifle shot far up the valley and answered it; before long 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

there was another and it was again answered, but when 
the third came, now not more than a mile away, my 
hammer clicked idly for the cartridges were out. This 
was the lonesomest thing of all, but it was not long be- 
fore my friends got within shouting distance, and Bax- 
ter and Percy arrived with horses and took me back to 
camp, which we reached somewhere about two in the 
morning. 

It might only be tedious to describe the succeeding 
days, though they were far from tedious to us, being 
most delightful and successful, both with deer and 
antelope, though we were soon met with the difficulty 
that we had all the venison we could use and that kill- 
ing any more meant useless slaughter. So, though the 
deer fairly forced themselves on our notice, we stopped 
killing them and devoted ourselves to the greater and 
rarer game. We were not lucky in striking elk for 
several days. Finally Wallace, Wolcott and I had 
climbed the mountain and were circling the peak when 
we heard a bull whistle below us and not far away. 
Instantly we were off our horses, let the reins trail on 
the ground and started on foot toward the sound, finally 
coming to the edge of a little park, when I heard Wal- 
lace give a sudden low call. Just in front of me was 
an opening like a port-hole through the last trees, and 
through this I suddenly saw, standing still in the mid- 
dle of the glade, and under the full light of the sun, 

49 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

the most magnificent thing I had ever beheld. Im- 
agine an animal with all the grace and beauty of a deer, 
and five or six times as big. He had heard a strange 
noise and was standing at attention, every muscle tense, 
and his head lifted until his splendid antlers seemed, 
allowing for excitement, to touch the sky. I did not 
stop long to admire, and my rifle boomed the instant 
the white bead showed against his shoulder. The 
smoke hung in the foliage so as to conceal everything 
in front, and I heard a second shot as I dashed through 
it. There was the elk in full run straight away from 
us, with our dog Queen close at his heels; but before I 
could shoot again there was another shot close beside 
me, and the great bull came down on his haunches, the 
ball having struck the spine and paralyzed the hind- 
quarters. The dog leaped at his throat, and he struck 
at her with his forefeet and antlers. I do not know ex- 
actly how we got there, but just as we arrived the 
splendid head went down and the grand animal was 
dead, my first shot having struck just back of the shoul- 
der and gone clear through both lungs. That was a 
great moment; and, by the way, the very best seat in the 
world is the flank of a bull elk which you have just 
killed yourself, and the first one is much better than 
the second. 

I have already told of the much larger head which 
fortune sent to me at the very end of our vacation, and 

50 



A TENDERFOOT IN COLORADO 

will not try to give further details of our experiences, 
though I might go on indefinitely with tales of our 
later doings. How we chased the antelope over the 
plain, which is rather barren amusement; how I 
stalked a big buck, and he saw me through a hill and a 
grove of aspens, spoke contemptuously of me in ante- 
lope language, and cut his stick. How some bear hunt- 
ers camped below us without advertising their pres- 
ence, turned their yellow burros into the timber, and I 
took one for an elk, shot it, and had to pay for it. How 
the bronchos bucked when we came to break camp and 
of the means taken to subdue them. How we went 
down into canyons so steep that the horses had to sit 
down and slide, and how we climbed out again. How 
we fished the Yampa at Steamboat and got back to 
civilization. But all these details I spare the unfortu- 
nate reader, only urging him to go and try it all for 
himself. 



!\.fe#:y. 







-^'O r^':^' 



.y ',-. 









51 



My Best Catch 




T IS now more than twenty years since 
the first trout rose to my fly, and I am 
indebted to fontinalis and his family 
for more unmixed joy than I can 
credit to almost any other one source. 
He has given me many a delightful 
day, many a pleasant remembrance, 
and has fully earned my heartfelt af- 
fection. But the pleasantest recollections are not of 
the days when trout would rise to every cast and at any 
fly, and one must stop fishing from sheer shame at such 
slaughter, but rather of the times when it took many 
casts and much care to stir a fish, when finally one 
would rise short and settle back, when one must go 
further down stream or sit behind the bushes, waiting 
for him to forget his fright, and, finally, when the care- 
fully planted fly would bring him up in earnest, when 
the tip would quiver in response to the quick strike, and 
the final reward would be earned only by much pa- 
tience and care. 

John Stuart Mill, if I remember my college course 
aright, said that the true value of anything depended 
upon two elements, viz. : "Value in use and difficulty of 
attainment." Good as the trout is on the table, his great- 
est charm to me is his shyness, uncertainty and caprici- 



53 



MY BEST CATCH 

ousness. If one could at any time catch all the trout 
he wanted, if the few days of glorious success were not 
separated by many of hard work and small results, 
would any of us care much for trout fishing? I think 
not. 

But now I have to tell of an ideal day and an ideal 
catch — one of those red-letter days which are the hope 
of youth and the happy recollection of age. Such 
comes but rarely, and fortunately so, for its frequent 
repetition would deprive the sport of its chief charm. 
This day, which in results far surpassed all my feeble 
efforts in the past and which, I sadly admit, will prob- 
ably far exceed any that I can reasonably hope for in 
the future, brought far the best catch of trout I have 
ever made, far the best I have ever seen, and one that, 
with all due modesty, I offer as the champion score 
made in reasonably civilized waters, under similar con- 
ditions, within the last few years, and within equal 
time. If anyone has done better within these limita- 
tions I congratulate him most heartily, and only hope 
that he may be moved to publish his experience and let 
me read the story. 

Toward the end of August the big trout gather to- 
gether from the waters of Munising Bay and the ad- 
jacent parts of Lake Superior, and assemble near the 
mouth of the Anna River, probably for the purpose of 
spawning in the stream. They are in large numbers 

54 




^ 



SS 



MY BEST CATCH 

and of large arverage size, but are the most freaky, un- 
certain and capricious fish that it has been my lot to see. 
One who fishes for them must make up his mind to un- 
limited patience, and to regular and unremitting at- 
tendance, for he may be perfectly certain that, if he 
abandon the effort for a single day, perhaps even a 
single hour, those abominable trout will select that par- 
ticular time for gratifying their appetites, and will 
then be ready for another long spell of fasting and re- 
ject his best and most skillfully presented lures. 

During three years I spent my vacations at Munis- 
mg, and most of the time in tempting these particular 
trout. Many good catches I have had, with many 
more days when the most diligent effort brought little 
or no success. This year also brought me to those 
waters and several days were spent in the same 
way, with barely tolerable results. My companions 
had become openly doubtful and disgusted, and I my- 
self had begun to fear that the rapid growth of the new 
City of Munising had driven the trout from their usual 
haunts, at least to a great extent. 

August twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth were days 
of bright sun, a strong northerly wind, and very poor 
fishing. Our party had arranged to spend Thursday in 
an excursion down the new railroad, proposing to fish a 
certain alleged lake somewhere on the line, of which 
no one seemed to know very much. I was to go with 

56 



MY BEST CATCH 

them, so, early on the morning of August twenty-sixth, 
put my second best rod into the boat, left my landing 
net at home, and rowed my wife and boy three miles to 
the city, where our party assembled. The wind had 
changed over night and was now a fresh breeze from 
the south, and the day was cloudy and threatening. All 
the way down I mentally discussed the advisability of 
abandoning a place where I was sure there was fish, 
to go wandering after strange lakes that nobody knew 
anything about, and finally told the party that they 
could go without me, and I would try the Anna again. 
I was derided and hooted at, but stuck to my resolution, 
and just at eight o'clock, solitary and alone, dropped 
anchor and let the boat drift toward my favorite spot. 

During previous days the trout seemed to greatly 
favor the dark Montreal fly, so I had two of these flies 
on my six-foot leader, backed by forty yards of No. F 
luster-finish silk line, and a seven-ounce split-bamboo 
rod — not my best one, but a nicely finished cheap rod 
with a good action. I anchored in shallow water quite 
near shore, and the ground within reach was tried 
thoroughly without result. Then twenty feet of anchor 
line were paid out, and the same process and results 
repeated. Twenty feet more brought my boat within 
fifty feet of two patches of weeds, with a channel be- 
tween, and about six feet of water around them. The 
flies dropped just at the edge of the channel and were 

57 



MY BEST CATCH 

drawn a foot or two, when there was a mighty rush and 
splash, a flash of gold, crimson and silver, a quick jerk 
of the right hand, the indescribable jar that tells of a 
well-set hook, and the rod was bending double under 
the rush of a splendid trout. The reel screamed to his 
first wild efforts for liberty, but rod and hand were 
working together in harmony, and the runs soon be- 
came shorter, the pressure less, then there were short 
dashes under the boat and away which were easily 
checked, and finally the great trout lay on his side 
completely exhausted. He was slowly brought along- 
side, the hook seen to be well fixed, the leader carefully 
grasped in the left hand, and a quick lift brought him 
into the boat — over two and a half pounds, and a beau- 
tiful and perfect specimen. 

The line was again lengthened, and the flies 
dropped near the old spot. Another rush and strike 
instantly followed, and ten minutes of hard work pro- 
duced the twin brother of the first one. He was duly 
landed and admired, another cast was made and an- 
other huge fellow hooked, and so for nearly two hours 
big fish rose at practically every cast, were hooked, 
played and landed. Every trout took the fly with a 
rush, was well and deeply hooked, and not a fish was 
lost, nor a rise missed. 

A little before ten o'clock I was just about to re- 
cover my line for another cast, and the rod was well 

58 



MY BEST CATCH 

back over my shoulder, when the biggest fish of the day 
rose with a tremendous surge. Instinctively my hand 
went back and the strike told, but the poor rod gave a 
startling crack. The fish fought splendidly, but was 
played and landed without great difficulty, and a care- 
ful examination of the rod disclosed no break, but I 
knew that something was very wrong. This, however, 
was the last really big fish taken, and the rod still 
struck, played and landed a number of smaller fish, but 
just at eleven a half-pound fish rose awkwardly, and at 
the strike my second joint snapped short close to the 
ferrule of the butt. By this time I was pretty well ex- 
hausted and not sorry for good reason to rest, so pulled 
in the half-pounder "endways" with the line, landed, 
and started for a rod repairer and something to eat. It 
was well into the afternoon before the damage was 
repaired and fishing resumed, and then the rise was 
over, and I took only a half dozen or so small fish. 

Just as I was about to give up three boats appeared 
around the end of the pier, rowing frantically toward 
me, which proved to contain the rest of my party. 
They had found no fish and come home in disgust, had 
seen my catch at the boat house, where they were left, 
and were wildly eager for a share of my luck. Then 
the laugh was on my side, and it seemed my duty to 
make it real pleasant for them. 

I selected out and gave away nine of the little fish 

59 



MY BEST CATCH 

and took home the rest of the catch, weighing, measur- 
ing and photographing them after they had been sev- 
eral hours out of the water, and the total left then 
proved to be as follows: One fish, weight three and a 
quarter pounds; three fish, two and three-quarter 
pounds each; one fish, two and a quarter pounds; one 
fish, two pounds; two fish, one and a half pounds each; 
two fish, one pound each; two fish, three-quarters of a 
pound each; ten fish, averaging one-half pound each. 
Total, twenty-two fish, weighing twenty-five pounds. 
It may be interesting to know that only two of these 
trout took the tail fly, while twenty-nine took the drop- 
per, though the two flies were exactly similar. 

Now, looking back on this eventful day I almost 
regret it. Never can I reasonably hope to do so well 
again, and all my future laurels will be blighted under 
the shadow of the past and greater triumph. Yet I 
would not repeat the day if I could. Such things 
should not be made too common, and in fact my suc- 
cess was too easy and too great. Fortune poured me out 
her sweets until I was cloyed with them, and I fear the 
edge of my appetite is permanently blunted. Alas! 
that man should be so made that only pursuit gives 
pleasure and attainment brings satiety. 




Surgery And Medicme 



A VILLANELLE. 
By a Patient. 




O CURE my undetermined ills 
Successive doctors emulate. 
They do not fail to send their bills. 

As every new incumbent wills 
They diet, drug and operate, 
To cure my undetermined ills. 



They come, and hope my bosom thrills ; 
They go, and I am desolate; 
They do not fail to send their bills. 

Diet and dosing, purges, pills, 
All fail, at their respective date, 
To cure my undetermined ills. 

The druggist each prescription fills 
And charges an excessive rate. 
They do not fail to send their bills. 

Nurses attend, in caps and frills. 
At wages more than adequate. 
To cure my undetermined ills. 

6i 



"SURGERY AND MEDICINE" 

Experts, renowned for various skills, 
The task abandon soon or late. 
They do not fail to send their bills. 

And, by the cemetery hills. 
The sad-faced undertakers wait 
To cure my undetermined ills. 
They will not fail to send their bills. 

November, 1898. 




IT- F" 






nfp-- 



l)ii/iiiii'i ilj !i M,|'; 



62 




An Ohio Trout Stream 

HE State of Ohio is thriving, prosper- 
ous, a good place for work and not 
bad for amusement; but its warm 
summers, gently flowing streams, allu- 
vial soil and generally flat surface are 
not congenial to the speckled trout, 
and I think none are naturally num- 
bered among its inhabitants. In the 
north and west, however, there is a limestone region, 
with the subterranean streams and great cold springs 
characteristic of such a geological formation, and here 
it has been found possible to colonize and maintain that 
darling of all good fishermen. Near the village of 
Castalia there rises a gently rounded knoll of moderate 
height, down the side of which hurries a brook of con- 
siderable volume. On climbing the slope one finds the 
summit occupied by a crater, plunging to great depth 
in the centre, and filled to the brim with blue pellucid 
water which overflows through a break in the rim. 
This "blue hole," as it is called, is a great limestone 
spring, fed by never-failing underground channels and 
furnishing a copious and regular supply* of water at 
the nearly uniform temperature of fifty degrees, sum- 
mer and winter alike. After a rapid flow of about five 
miles the stream bustles into Lake Erie near Venice 



63 



AN OHIO TROUT STREAM 

Station, and its briskness and brevity do not admit of 
great change in its temperature from source to mouth 
at any season, so that it is admirably adapted for a home 
for trout, being, I think, about the only stream in Ohio 
suitable for fontinalis. The whole stream is owned by 
two clubs, has been fully stocked and carefully pre- 
served, and fairly swarms with trout, chiefly fontinalis, 
though a few fario and irideus were introduced a 
number of years ago. These two latter quickly grow to 
great size, and then never take the fly, devour heca- 
tombs of their smaller kindred and are an unmitigated 
pest, which the most vigorous efforts fail to entirely 
remove. A brown trout was lately taken out of this 
stream, that weighed thirteen pounds and contained 
seven fontinalis up to eleven inches long, and doubt- 
less many such sharks are still watching and preying 
there. Where waters are already occupied by our own 
delightful trout, introduction of the less attractive vari- 
eties can do no possible good, in fact is practically cer- 
tain to do much harm, so they should only be placed in 
streams too warm and sluggish to suit fontinalis, being 
often well adapted to such environments. 

The brook has a steady and brisk current and the 
water is surprisingly clear, although the whole course 
is through rich, alluvial soil, nearly all under cultiva- 
tion. Its bed is scooped into hollows and ridges and a 
thick moss, the home of countless Crustacea, covers 

64 







"8 



AN OHIO TROUT STREAM 

every prominence and gives the fish a rich feeding 
ground. Under overhanging masses of moss, or be- 
neath artificial shelters of plank, big trout lie in wait 
for wandering minnow or drifting fly. The novice is 
enraptured at first sight of the stream, with its entranc- 
ing ripples and pools, abundance of hiding holes, and 
the dark forms that flash from cover to cover, and is 
prone to think that a promenade along the edge and a 
little easy swinging of his rod will quickly fill his 
basket. After tramping a mile or two, whipping indus- 
triously without a single rise, though the surface is 
furrowed far in advance by darting fish, he begins to 
learn that these trout are educated and not to be taken 
except by the use of the greatest skill and care. If 
then he goes well away from the edge, walks down to 
an undisturbed spot, creeps toward the bank, keeping 
entirely out of sight of the water, stops twenty feet 
from it, swings off forty feet of line in the air and 
drops his flies on the barely visible surface, he will find 
the problem solved, for in this and in no other way can 
Castalia trout be taken. One must apply the English 
rule of "fine and far off" and couple it with the fur- 
ther maxim, "keep out of sight." This latter rule is 
of vital importance on all waters that are much fished 
and it seems to me that sufficient stress has not been laid 
upon it in most works on angling. Of course in wide 
waters a long cast is all that is necessary; but in small 

66 



AN OHIO TROUT STREAM 

Streams, whipped by many rods, success can only be ob- 
tained by accurate and delicate casting, joined to 
much such precautions in approach as one would use 
in stalking big game. It is also very important that the 
first cast in a new spot be delivered with delicacy and 
in the right place, so that a big and cautious trout may 
not be put on his guard by any preliminary disturb- 
ance; and this seems nearly as important as accuracy 
and care in the first shot at big game. I remember once 
in a very wild country to have had a good trout rise 
boldly to seven successive casts, miss the flies every time 
and be hooked on the eighth ; but usually there is a bold 
first rise, a half-hearted second one, possibly a boil of 
the waters at the third cast, and then blankness and 
desolation. If one will go away and sit down for a 
few minutes, then creep cautiously back and very care- 
fully drop the flies in the old spot, he is more than 
likely to have another handsome rise and hook the fish, 
provided, of course, it has not been scared enough to 
run clear away. 

Through the hospitality of some members I have 
been several times permitted to enjoy the privileges of 
these waters and have had most delightful sport after 
the necessary methods had been learned through sad 
experience, finding, as one always does, that prizes are 
valuable in the exact ratio of the effort needed to ob- 
tain them, and that one of the wily and experienced 

68 



AN OHIO TROUT STREAM 

nobles of this stream was a more valued trophy than 
many of the bold and careless denizens of wilderness 
waters, where appetite and inexperience bring trout 
to any lure, no matter how unskilfully offered, there 
is no difficulty in hooking fish, and the only effort re- 
quired is to properly play them. 

Castalia fish are not usually early risers, at least 
they will not often take the fly until the sun has been 
up for some time. In summer diligent fishing for 
hours before breakfast will very rarely result in a de- 
cent catch, while at eight or nine o'clock every trout 
will be ready for business. Until hot weather comes, 
the middle of the day is the most favorable time, and in 
March and April very few will be taken except on 
bright days and during the warmest hours. My last 
visit was made toward the end of March, and the trout 
were then very sluggish, never rising clear of the wa- 
ter, and showing little energy when hooked. The fish 
were evidently feeding on small Crustacea and moUusks 
found in the moss, and my best success was at a point 
where there was a wide expanse of this growth covered 
by water not more than six inches deep. Sharp fur- 
rows of the surface betrayed the presence of good-sized 
fish, so I went well back from the water, sat down and 
smoked a cigarette while the pool quieted, and then 
wormed my cautious way to twenty feet from the edge, 
lay flat so as just to glimpse the water through the 

69 



AN OHIO TROUT STREAM 

grass stubble, gathered forty feet of line in the air, and 
dropped the cast well out. A wake like that of a steam- 
boat rushed toward the flies and as it reached them the 
rod went back sharply, the line tightened and the hook 
set, and after a little gentle play I was surprised to find 
two trout fast, each fourteen inches long, but in such 
poor condition that they weighed only a little over 
twelve ounces each, while trout of that length in fine 
condition should weigh nearly a pound and a quarter, 
which these would doubtless have done a month later. 
On the table the flesh of these trout proved soft, pur- 
plish pink and very deficient in flavor, and I have con- 
cluded that fishing so early in the season is hardly 
worth while. 

Both the clubs maintain large hatcheries, and are 
constantly adding to the stock of small fry in the brook; 
doubtless most of these find their way down the de- 
vouring maws of their larger relatives but the supply 
in the stream is kept up to a high point. Artificial 
plank shelters, each about ten feet square, are fixed 
here and there for the convenience of the trout, and 
frequent foot bridges greatly promote that of the fisher- 
men. The two clubs in the past have had disagree- 
ments as to their respective water rights and how far 
each could use its own property without injuring the 
other, which culminated in a law suit that finally 
reached the Supreme Court, ending as usual in a deci- 

70 




Castalia Brook — 3 



AN OHIO TROUT STREAM 

sion giving each party a part of what it claimed; but 
this is ancient history, and now the clubs live together 
in harmony, there being abundance of fish and sport 
for all. The upper club owns the big spring and about 
a mile of the stream, but has dredged a long channel, 
curving back and forth on itself, so as to make several 
miles more of artificial water, in all of which fish 
swarm. The membership of this society is large, so 
that there are apt to be several rods at work on every 
day all through the season; the foolish and reckless 
minority of the trout are soon caught, and the majority 
become educated to an amazing extent, so that by the 
first of July it is nearly impossible to get any to rise 
during the day. Some are then caught by a large fly, 
with a split shot on the leader, run down the swift wa- 
ter, but much of the fishing is done at night, when good 
catches are often made. There is a certain weirdness 
about fly fishing in the dark, casting by faith, striking 
by sound, and keeping out of the brook if you are 
lucky, which is novel and interesting at first, but this 
seemed to quickly pall after I had twice or thrice un- 
tangled a snarled leader by the light of a pocket lamp. 
The lower club has, I think, but twenty-five mem- 
bers and owns several miles of stream, so the fishing is 
much less continuous and the trout do not reach such a 
painful degree of knowledge and caution; still they are 
by no means inexperienced, and one can only make a 

72 



AN OHIO TROUT STREAM 

decent catch by using great caution and patience and 
considerable skill. The members of both organiza- 
tions are very hospitable and generous, and give many 
a pleasant day to those not fortunate enough to be stock- 
holders. 




73 



On The Manistee 



iMffiSs 



wo HUNDRED miles northwest of 
Detroit, about half way between Lakes 
Huron and Michigan, and almost ex- 
actl}^ on the watershed between them, 
the town of Grayling stands, on light, 
sandy soil of no value for agriculture, 
and surrounded by miles of stumps, 
all that the axe and saw have left of 
once splendid forests of white pine. Through the town 
itself flow the headwaters of the Ausable, "the river 
of the sands," on their way to Lake Huron; and a few 
miles to the west and north the Manistee begins its 
course to Lake Michigan. At one point the rivers are 
scarcely more than a mile apart, being separated only 
by a low, sandy ridge. These streams, like nearly all in 
that vicinity, are the original home of the Michigan 
grayling, and a few survivors of that beautiful species 
still linger there, though logs have torn through their 
spawning beds, and intruding fontinalis, having worked 
their own way in from other waters, and irideus, un- 
wisely introduced by man into the Ausable, have har- 
ried and persecuted their more timid and delicate pre- 
decessors. My guides say that today the eastward river 



75 



ON THE MANISTEE 

contains few grayling, many speckled trout, and great 
numbers of rainbows, which monopolize the best water 
to the exclusion of their more delicate and attractive 
associates. Big, coarse, fighting with fury when hooked 
but almost worthless when on the table, they take the 
place and the food of their betters, to the disgust of all 
right-minded anglers. They are a little better than 
pickerel, but not much. This is hearsay evidence, but 
I have no doubt it is true. 

The westward stream, more fortunate, contains 
no rainbows, and a good many grayling, though the 
speckled trout predominate. Visiting it in August, 1901, 
we took trout and grayling in about equal numbers and 
size, often alternately from the same pool or riffle. 
Going there in June, 1902, and fishing the upper waters 
only, four of us took in four days one hundred and fifty 
good-sized trout, and not a single grayling. I fancy 
that the spawning beds are lower down the river, and 
that thymallus had not yet ascended after their spring 
nuptials to the part of the stream where we were 
camped. 

The Manistee has a steady and moderately rapid 
current, flowing over clean white sand; no rapids, but 
an alternation of pools and shallows. The best trout- 
ing was on its course through a large tract of cedar 

swamp, where the trees had all been killed by fire 
or flood, and lined the water's edges with a mass of 

76 




5 



ON THE MANISTEE 

fallen trunks and tops. Among these the flies must be 
deftly placed, using a rather long line; and a hooked 
flsh must be hauled away from danger, if possible, be- 
fore he finds out what the trouble is, and begins to 
run. When he will not come, as is not infrequently 
the case, things happen, and happen fast. More 
than once I stopped a pound fish, in his first mad rush 
toward a submerged cedar top, by sheer strength of 
rod, line and leader, and more than once I did not; but 
the six-ounce rod, and the little No. lo fluttering flies 
did good work all through, and not a fish was lost by 
failure of tackle. 

One must camp to fish either river to good advan- 
tage, and guides and camp outfits can be had in Gray- 
ling, though arrangements should be made well in ad- 
vance. 

On these rivers the fish, when boated, are put into 
a box under the angler's seat, which communicates 
freely with the river. Those not needed for immediate 
use are kept alive in a fish crate of slats, so that they 
are in perfect condition to take home; that is, if one be 
a resident of Michigan. The law prohibits the taking 
of fish or game out of the State. 

In a recent, handsomely bound and elaborately il- 
lustrated book, entitled "The Speckled Trout," the 
writer tells of an alleged actual experience. The sharp 
strike is followed by a furious rush down stream, the 

78 




Trout atid Grayling 



ON THE MANISTEE 

reel shrieks fiercely, the fisherman's heart leaps with 
joy and fear, and the long and fierce struggle finally 
ends in the landing of a twelve-inch monster. Now this 
is fiction pure and simple. A plump twelve-inch fon- 
tinalis will weigh three-quarters of a pound, and no 
such fish ever drew line from a reel unless the fisher- 
man wilfully let him do it, or was too clumsy or igno- 
rant to prevent it. We are all prone to exaggerate the 
vigor of our finny prizes, partly from the weakness of 
human nature and partly from the powerful leverage 
given to the fish by the length of the rod. A little pull- 
ing against a spring balance will teach us a good deal 
on this point and bring our notions down toward ac- 
curacy; but such exaggerated fine writing as that of 
which the substance precedes this paragraph cannot be 
too severely censured. The spring of a properly han- 
dled rod will conquer any pound trout, and often one 
much exceeding that weight, without an inch of line 
being yielded from the reel. Any increase in the length 
of line between fisherman and fish is materially to the 
advantage of the latter, adding greatly to his chance of 
escape. No more line should be given than is abso- 
lutely necessary, and the trout should be reeled up as 
fast as may safely be to within twenty or thirty feet, 
when he can be allowed to exhaust himself with the 
minimum risk of loss. 

Trout are by no means always found in swift 

80 



ON THE MANISTEE 

water. A deep still pool under the bank, shadowed by 
overhanging trees and spiked with snags and brush, is 
a favorite resort for the big fat fellows that you want 
most. Never mind if your first cast produces only a 
chub. The big trout often lie in the same water and 
w^ill be stirred to action if you keep the flies playing. 
In August seek a deep still log-dotted corner, where a 
draw on shore shows the probability of an underwater 
cold spring, put your flies over it in the early morning 
or toward sunset and you are more than likely to take 
big fish after big fish. From such a hole on the Manis- 
tee I have caught trout and grayling in about equal 
numbers, and the biggest taken on the whole trip. 




8 1 



Various Notions 




OME years ago a lengthy discussion 
was carried on in Outing as to 
whether trout "leaped on a slack 
line." The question did not seem 
happily stated, but was explained to 
ask whether trout, in the struggle to 
escape, would jump straight out of 
the water, when not drawn to the sur- 
face by the pull of the rod. Although such an action 
is not common I have repeatedly seen it occur, the fish 
going straight up like a bass and turning over and over 
in the fall, and this has happened with special fre- 
quency among the large and lusty trout of Lake Super- 
ior and Northern Canada. Black bass almost always 
leap repeatedly, but now and then one will come to the 
net without breaking the water at all. According to 
my experience trout occasionally leap and bass occas- 
ionally do not. 

I recently saw an article in which the writer, evi- 
dently an experienced and skilled fisherman, laid down 
the general law that multiplying reels were inadmis- 
sible in fly fishing. It would have been interesting to 
know his reasons for such a positive statement but un- 
fortunately they w^ere not given. The use of the reel 
after a fish is hooked is of course to prevent his getting 

83 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

slack line and, other things being equal, the reel which 
will handle line most rapidly would seem to be prefer- 
able. That the multiplier excels the plain winch in this 
respect does not need any proof, and in all other re- 
spects I have found it greatly superior. The modern 
rubber and brass, steel pivot, multiplying reel is light, 
strong and handy, and to my thinking the ideal equip- 
ment for a trout rod. I have used nothing else for 
many years, except when trying somebody else's outfit, 
and then came back to my own swift working reel with 
the greatest relief and comfort. A modern large mul- 
tiplier, such as is always used for tarpon, tuna and the 
other great oceanic fish, might be found preferable to 
the single action for salmon fishing also, if the con- 
servatism of salmon fishermen would allow them to 
give it a fair trial. 

Springy rod and yielding reel are meant to co- 
operate with the hand and arm of the fisherman in 
keeping the connection between man and fish constantly 
taut, under such strain as the tackle can easily endure. 
When the terrified quarry dashes away the elastic tip 
prevents any sudden shock and, should the rush be vio- 
lent enough to break gut or tear out hook, the released 
reel lets him go, under a constant strain, until his fury 
and fear are somewhat abated. No fish will continue 
to run indefinitely against a steady pull. He gets a lit- 
tle tired, stops to think it out with his poor ichthyologi- 

84 




Peto 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

cal brain, the reel begins to recover line and he is half 
way back before the idea gets through his head. Each 
rush is shorter than the preceding until the big fellow- 
is brought, exhausted and helpless, to gafif or net by a 
line that he could snap instantly if rigidly held. With 
all fish the rule is the same. Keep your line taut, yield 
when you must and no more than you can help, and re- 
cover line as often and as rapidly as you can. The fish 
really plays and exhausts himself and should be per- 
mitted to do so without being at any time held so hard 
as to risk tearing out hook or snapping gut. Some- 
times of course a dash for brush or weeds makes it 
necessary to throw your hand back, let the rod take the 
full strain and stop your fish or break your tackle. The 
tip rattles across your fingers, there is a moment of 
breathless suspense, then the great trout rolls up ex- 
hausted, or, alas! there is a sharp rending crack, a butt 
broken at the ferrule, a leader fast in the brush, an- 
other big fish gone and an excusably emphatic angler 
left in the ruins. 

To be successful in angling one must know the 
haunts and habits of the fish, what bait, natural or ar- 
tificial, is likely to be attractive, must have the tackle 
and the skill to present the lure without causing alarm 
and so that it will be taken, and the art to gradually 
subdue the struggling prey, never using too much force 
and never too little. Each kind of fishing has its pe- 

86 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

culiar charm and requires its peculiar knowledge and 
skill, but human nature is so constituted that each of us 
is apt to consider his specialty to stand far above the 
rest, and to look with a shade of contempt on those de- 
voted to other methods and objects. The almost san- 
guinary conflict between the dry fly and wet fly schools 
of anglers is a marked case in point. The chalk streams 
of England are distinguished by very clear water and 
languid current and around them has developed the 
dry fly method of fishing for trout. This consists of the 
use of very fine tackle with a single small floating fly, 
searching for a rising fish, and casting the fly upstream 
so that it will float over his nose. These methods are 
admirably adapted to that water and undoubtedly far 
more successful there, and on other streams possessing 
similar characteristics, than any other mode of casting 
the fly. The devotees of this special sport first grew to 
think it the best way to take trout, and at last came to 
the broad generalization that their beloved method 
was the only proper one and to be used under all cir- 
cumstances. One who uses what has come to be called 
in contradistinction the "wet fly" method they con- 
temptuously describe as a "chuck and chance it" angler, 
and one who prefers to fish down or across stream is 
considered at least a heretic and almost an atheist. In 
our swift American trout waters the upstream cast is 
generally of little use, as the rapid current slacks your 

87 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

line so quickly that effective striking is almost impos- 
sible, and a rise cannot be so accurately located that a 
fly can be floated over it v^^ith effect. To cast down or 
across the current is the only practical method over 
most of their courses, but, should still pools or gently 
flowing reaches be encountered, the chalk stream 
method will often be found most effective. 

It is traditional among salmon fishermen that the 
tip should be lowered when a fish leaps and raised 
again after he strikes the water, the alleged effect being 
to slack the leader and so prevent the hook being torn 
out, or the gut broken, by the salmon's weight falling 
across a taut line. This principle and practice is vig- 
orously attacked by Mr. Wells in his admirable book 
"The American Salmon Fisherman," in which he ex- 
presses the decided opinion, backing it by very effec- 
tive argument, that, when one has out a long line in a 
swift current, dropping the tip at a leap cannot possibly 
affect the strain on the leader in time to be of any ser- 
vice. He goes on to say that, after very careful and ex- 
tended experiments with both methods, he has found at 
least no more fish escape when the tension is kept up 
than when the tip is dropped, and that now, when a 
silvery salmon shoots into the atmosphere, he only 
looks on and admires. 

If the traditional method is correct with salmon it 
would also seem the proper one to follow in the case of 

88 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

any leaping fish; bass, trout, tarpon, tuna and all the 
acrobatic tribe ; but I think it has never been even sug- 
gested except for salmon. As the cardinal rule for suc- 
cess is "keep your line taut" any course that violates this 
principle should be sustained by the best of theoretical 
argument and verified by long and careful practical 
tests. My own experience with salmon has been rather 
limited, but with them and other fish I have never 
dropped my tip at a leap, and certainly have not lost an 
undue proportion of hooked fish. In fact it is my habit, 
when a fish leaps near me, on a short line which can be 
kept clear of the water, to raise my point as he comes 
up and lower it as he falls, thus keeping the line always 
taut. With a long line out I believe it advisable to 
hold on steadily and trust to the spring of the rod and 
the hold of the hook, when a fish goes into the air. Of 
course the leap is a very sudden and fierce effort, gives 
the greatest possible strain and jerk that the fish is cap- 
able of, and is likely to break tackle or tear out the 
hook if anything can, but it is at least very doubtful 
whether dropping the tip and slackening the line will 
not always do more harm than good. 

An eminent American, formerly President of the 
United States and famous for many admirable quali- 
ties, has recently published a book of" fishing and 
shooting sketches, which must appeal to every sports- 
man by the good sense, apt language and true and 

89 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

kindly spirit which mark it throughout. Never- 
theless even Mr. Cleveland is not entirely free from 
prejudice in favor of his particular ways of fishing, 
nor is he always absolutely correct in his statements 
concerning other methods less familiar to himself. Ap- 
parently he has met and heard some bigoted fly fisher- 
men, intolerant of anything but fly fishing and abusive 
toward the devotees of bait in any form, and the re- 
membrance of these unwise and aggressive persons 
rankles a little. Hence this very reasonable and cau- 
tious writer is led to assert it to be absolutely prepos- 
terous that the fly can be efifectively cast by the motion 
of the forearm alone, the whole upper arm to the el- 
bow being strapped to the side. Now any experienced 
fly fisherman know^s that this so-called feat presents no 
real difficulty, and has seen done, and done himself, 
practically the same thing. In fact it is my custom 
w^hen fishing .from a boat, where casts of great length 
are not necessary and when the wind is not high, to rest 
the right elbow on my knee and cast mainly with the 
wrist alone, thus saving considerable fatigue. This re- 
quires no particular skill and is certainly no cause for 
boasting, being perfectly easy to accomplish. For very 
long casts, or against or across a high wind, one is prone 
to use the whole arm, backed by a thrust of the shoul- 
der, for the vigorous stroke which is then essential to 
put the flies out with a straight line; but I think we 

90 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

should all do better casting by depending mainly on 
the sharp stroke of the wrist, using the forearm but 
little, the upper arm much less and the body not at all. 

Rifles range from the huge four bore, taking an 
ounce of powder and a round ball of a quarter of a 
pound, able to rake an elephant from stem to stern and 
stop him in full charge by sheer striking power, down 
to the tiny twenty-two caliber, fit only for birds and 
small game. The comparative power of rifles of all 
calibers has recently been greatly increased by the per- 
fection of high explosive smokeless powders, with the 
accompanying increased strength given by nickel steel 
barrels. Of course the all-around rifle, suitable for any 
game, does not exist, and the weapon must be propor- 
tioned to the animal it is to be used against. Too large 
a gun burdens the man with its weight and bruises him 
with its kick; but too small a gun tortures without kill- 
ing, and may be insufficient to stop the charge of dan- 
gerous game, so that the hunter risks injury or even 
death. Hence one must be sure to have his weapon big 
and powerful enough. 

The repeating rifle has been brought to a high de- 
gree of excellence in America, and its use is here prac- 
tically universal. The later models, high power, 
smokeless powder, take down, are m'ost admirable 
weapons, light, powerful, accurate, low in cost, and, 
even in quite moderate caliber, fully equal to any game 

91 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

found in North America except possibly the grisly 
and polar bear. The patterns being standardized any 
broken or worn parts can be replaced easily, cheaply 
and quickly. These guns come in a great variety of 
bores, taking ammunition of widely varying power. 
My favorite is the Winchester thirty-three smokeless, 
which has given me admirable service against deer 
from the moose down. Such a gun complete with Ly- 
man sights costs about twenty-two dollars. 

English sportsmen, on the contrary, are addicted 
to the double express rifle, using bores and weights of 
powder and lead that seem to us absurdly large for 
most game. Mr. Kirby, in his admirable book "In 
Haunts of Wild Game," speaks of shooting bush buck 
and smaller antelope with bullets varying from five 
hundred and ninety grains to two and one-half ounces. 
Against animals of such size we of the Western Hemis- 
phere would use a soft nose ball, not exceeding two 
hundred grains, and would I think show quite as good 
results. 

Mr. Kirby, and even that king of sportsmen, Sir 
Samuel Baker, condemn the repeating magazine rifle 
in the most unqualified way, on the theoretical ground 
that the balance must alter as the ammunition is ex- 
pended, but I have not been able to find from their 
books that either of them ever made a practical trial 
of the arm. To condemn a weapon on a priori grounds, 

92 




Kingfish 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

without any actual test, is more than likely to lead one 
into gross error. According to my own experience, 
w^hich I feel sure is that of many thousand riflemen, 
this theoretical objection to the repeating rifle is abso- 
lutely imaginary. 

English sporting journals rarely if ever mention 
American rifles, but celebrate the hand-made double 
express, costing from fifteen to fifty pounds sterling, 
for all kinds of shooting and in all calibers. Whether 
this is caused by pure British buUheadedness and con- 
servatism, or is due to subsidization by local gunmak- 
ers, would be difficult to determine. Of course our re- 
peating arms are not intended for elephant, rhinoceros, 
or hippopotamus, and might possibly be unequal to the 
gaur and African bufifalo; but for any lesser game they 
would doubtless be quite sufficient. To use a double 
rifled cannon with a two-ounce projectile against ante- 
lope and deer of tv^o or three hundred pounds would, 
in this country, be considered ludicrous. The lighter 
guns are certainly coming into use, even by the con- 
servative English, as Mr. Selous reports excellent suc- 
cess against elephants with a forty-five express, using 
a hardened ball of about six hundred grains, in fact he 
practically recommends that nothing larger be carried, 
at least except in very special cases. 

A repeating rifle renders it possible to pump hall 
a dozen shots in the general direction of the game, 

94 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

should the sportsman be sufficiently hasty and excit- 
able, but the blame for such foolishness is not on the 
gun but on the man behind it. One well-aimed shot at 
standing game is worth a dozen fluky ones at a running 
mark, no matter what kind of rifle is delivering them. 

All fishermen carry in their books many flies that 
they very rarely use; but nearly all have one or more 
favorite flies, which they are never without, and which 
are likely to go on the leader for the first trial cast. I 
have fished over most of the Adirondacks, in the Lake 
Superior country, and in Northern Ontario and Que- 
bec, during the last twenty years, and have also had one 
season in Northern Colorado on the western slope of 
the Rockies. The black spotted trout of the latter re- 
gion I found to differ sharply in its habits, and in its 
taste for flies, from any eastern fish I have tried; but 
our beloved fontinalis has generally shown himself a 
gentleman of rather uniform tastes, and, in my experi- 
ence, had a strong preference for flies of certain pat- 
terns, viz: 

First: The Dark Montreal, claret body, dark- 
brown wing, mottled with black, is by far the most suc- 
cessful fly I have used. It seems equally good in the 
small sizes — 8 and lo — on eastern streams and for 
rather small trout — and in sizes 3 and 4, with the three 
and four pounders of the rock fishing on the northern 
shores of Lake Superior. It seems good at all times of 

95 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

day and all days. Nearly every tackle-maker seems to 
have his own fancy as to the color and shape of a "Mon- 
treal," but the lighter colored ones have never done 
good work for me. 

Second: The Abbey. This has proved a very kill- 
ing fly in the Adirondacks, both early and late in the 
season, using only the small sizes. The large sizes of 
this pattern did not seem to attract the big Superior 
trout at all. 

Third : Red Ant. Very like the Abbey in general 
effect, and almost as good. I have tried this in the 
small sizes only. 

Fourth : A number of patterns, all occasionally, 
perhaps frequently successful, and to about the same 
degree. Grizzly King, Brown Hackle, Coachman, 
Alder, Professor and Silver Doctor. 

Fifth: The Parmacheene Belle. I have had 
rather infrequent success with this fly, in small sizes and 
for casting. In trolling a large fly of this pattern I 
have taken many speckled and lake trout, and found it 
much the best fly for that method of fishing. 

Sixth: I always carry some "Black Ant" and 
"White Miller" in medium sizes. Occasionally they 
have taken trout when nothing else was tempting, but I 
use them but rarely in eastern waters. The Black Ant 
was about the only fly the black spotted Colorado trout 

96 



VARIOUS NOTIONS 

would take, during my own experience with that fish- 
ing. 

Seventh : One well known fly I have tried very 
many times, have only rarely taken a fish on it, and 
never a really good one, "The Scarlet Ibis." 



/ ' ■/ ^^ 




97 




Fields And Pastures New 

Y FIRST trout was caught in a New 
Hampshire brook, over thirty years 
ago, and my first quail and duck were 
j shot in Ohio several years before. 
Scarcely a year since has passed with- 
out my getting an outing, long or 
short, near or far, as circumstances 
permitted; and it has been my privi- 
lege and pleasure to catch trout in the Alleghenies, Adi- 
rondacks, around Lake Superior and in the Rockies, 
and to shoot white tail and black tail deer, elk and ante- 
lope, as well as smaller game, in these and other dis- 
tricts. I had, however, never shot or even seen moose 
or caribou and longed for new game and a new coun- 
try, w^hich were found as told hereafter. 
I. — TEMAGAMI. 
In northern Ontario, about half way between To- 
ronto and the southern end of Hudson's Bay, and about 
two hundred miles east of Lake Superior, lies the 
"Temagami Forest Preserve," part of the great w^ilder- 
ness which extends indefinitely northward. Its only 
roads are Indian trails; its only houses Indian cabins 
and posts of the Hudson Bay Company and these are 
very scarce; and the few Indians and whites who per- 
manently make their home there practically depend on 



99 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

the only local staple, fur, the sable and mink skins ob- 
tained being especially dark, fine and valuable. Each 
Indian has his trapping range, often very extensive, 
and his rights are respected by others, and pass to his 
children by inheritance. Trespass is very rare and is 
a grave crime, which custom permits to be prevented 
or punished by any means found necessary. 

Here the ancient backbone of the continent, the 
Laurentian mountains, has been planed by glaciers 
and gnawed by weather and time, until it has become 
rolling or hilly country, ridged and ragged with rocks, 
dotted with countless lakes, and covered in large part 
by splendid forests of white and red pine, which so far 
have been spared the ax. Through the tangled swamps 
and boggy lakes splash and stalk the magnificent 
moose. The black bear and lucivee roam the forests 
and the mink and martin are many. Rufifed grouse are 
numerous and ridiculously tame, and the scarcer and 
more solitary spruce grouse is often met with. Big 
black bass, pike and dore, the latter being the pike 
perch and locally known as pickerel, abound in the 
lower lakes and larger streams and, above the high 
falls impassable to these, the speckled trout have taken 
refuge and thrive and increase abundantly. Temagami- 
itself, most beautiful of lakes, with its multitude of 
channels and arms extending for hundreds of miles and 
studded with numerous islands, abounds in lake trout 







Co 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

and whitefish which grow to great size. The serpent 
in this earthly paradise is the scourge of black flies, 
midges and mosquitoes, which appear about the first of 
June, make the summer months almost intolerable, and 
practically disappear by the middle of August. In the 
month of May the fishing is at its best and the flies have 
not arrived, and with September comes the shooting 
season and the flies are gone, so the tender-skinned 
Yankee had better visit the country in May or Septem- 
ber, and avoid the months between. A few of the pests 
appear at the end of May and a few linger to the first 
days of September, so a provision of fly dope and veils 
is expedient. 

This wilderness is reached from Lake Temiskam- 
ing either by the Montreal or Metabetchouan Rivers, 
the sole means of travel being canoes. The camp and 
personal outfit, tents, blankets, supplies for the journey 
and all luxuries, must be taken from civilization, 
though flour, meal, sugar and such supplies can gener- 
ally be obtained at the Hudson Bay Company's post at 
Bear Island. As everything must be carried over nu- 
merous portages, some of which are a mile or more in 
length and quite rough, the importance of going light 
is manifest and at the best travel must be pretty slow. 
A canoe and guide should be provided for each of the 
party, and an extra guide with canoe to carry supplies, 
cook and attend to camp, leaving the ^'sports," as those 






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ir^ >\^ 


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V> " 








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cq 




FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

visiting the country for pleasure seem to be invariably 
called, and their personal guides, free to get away from 
camp in the morning or come in late at night, without 
the domestic economies being upset thereby. 

To avoid payment of duties, supplies of all kinds 
should be purchased in Canada, at Toronto or Mon- 
treal as may be convenient, and furnished in sacks con- 
venient for portaging. They can be checked as per- 
sonal baggage. Michie & Company, grocers of To- 
ronto, make a specialty of supplying tourists and have 
given me complete satisfaction. Sleeping bags, tents 
and camp and personal outfit I have found could best 
be obtained from New York dealers. Take the usual 
trout fly equipment, a light steel rod with spinners and 
spoons, and two hundred feet of No. 20 annealed cop- 
per wire for deep trolling. For moose I have found 
the new .33 caliber Winchester "take down" quite suffi- 
ciently powerful and very handy, while the lightness 
of both gun and cartridges is a great advantage. A 
light .22 caliber rifle or target pistol will be found use- 
ful for grouse or to give a finish to one of the big Tem- 
agami lake trout, if you are lucky enough to hook him. 
Guides vary as human nature always does. Mine were 
excellent woodsmen and excellent fellows, though 
sometimes rather slow, and did their very best to get 
me good sport. Others that I saw and heard of were 

104 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

inefficient, and as usual in such cases sulky in propor- 
tion. 

The regular rates for guides are two dollars per 
day and twenty-five cents per day for each canoe. Tents 
and blankets can also be rented if arrangements are 
made in advance. The ice goes out of the lakes from 
April 20 to May i ; but vegetation hurries forward to 
get its work done during the short summer, and the 
leaves can be almost seen to grow. Light snow and 
freezing nights may be expected early in October and 
pretty heavy snow is probable by the end of that month. 
One is always likely to meet cool or even cold weather, 
and the clothing and outfit should be provided accord- 
ingly. I went in by way of Toronto and Mattawa, met 
my guides at Temiskaming, and went by steamer up 
the lake; but a railroad was then being built from 
North Bay to Lake Temiskaming, which is now in 
operation and gives a much better route, saving several 
days' paddling and portaging. 

My first trip here was in the fall of 1900, when I 
stayed only a few days, spied out the land, caught a lot 
of very fine bass and my son missed an unexpected 
moose. The following spring my wife and I started in 
at Haileybury, went up the Montreal and through 
Lady Evelyn and Sucker Gut lakes, and up a river 
which meets the extreme end of the latter, to which we 
gave the name "Lemabin." After passing three large 

105 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

falls we found wonderful trout fishing; in fact, the 
trout were so numerous that an hour's fishing per day 
would furnish all that could possibly be used, and fish- 
ing had to stop. Thence we went down through Tem- 
agami and out by the Metabetchouan, a canoe trip of 
over two hundred miles in all, taking three weeks and 
full of delights. 

In the fall of that year I went back hoping to get 
a moose, but went in several wrong directions, struck 
bad weather, was taken ill, and was too weak to trail 
the only moose I saw, after shooting him through the 
neck. My guides followed and finished him, but his 
head was barely w^orth mounting. This was outside 
the Temagami forest preserve in which shooting was 
not then permitted. The prohibition was removed the 
year after, and another trip provided me with a really 
fine specimen, having a maximum spread of fifty-five 
and one-half inches, with very regular and beautiful 
antlers. This moose was evidently still young, and his 
horns seemed light for the great size of the animal. I 
measured him with great care and found his dimensions 
to be: Nose to tail, ten feet one inch; girth, eight feet 
three inches; hind leg to ridge of back, six feet; height 
at shoulder (estimated) six feet nine inches. 

Visitors to this country will find it wise to comply 
strictly with the requirements of the local laws, which 
are in no way unreasonable. The authorities maintain 

1 06 




5: 

8^ 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

a surprisingly efficient system of inspection, and the 
punishment inflicted on a detected offender is very se- 
vere. One can have plenty of sport legally, be safe 
from penalties and, best of all, enjoy the approval of 
his own conscience. 

II. — NEWFOUNDLAND. 

During the last trip to Temagami I met some New 
York gentlemen, who had been caribou hunting in 
Newfoundland the year before, and they were good 
enough to give me a full account of their experience, 
with names and addresses of their guides, routes and 
sources of supply and, in fact, all the detailed informa- 
tion that one has usually to laboriously, tediously and 
expensively acquire for himself. I at once began cor- 
respondence, and succeeded as I thought in making all 
necessary arrangements, and our party of four left 
Cleveland on August twenty-fourth. Four days' steady 
travel, by way of Boston, Plant line steamer to Hawkes- 
bury, Cape Breton, rail to North Sydney, the steamer 
Bruce to Port au Basques, and the Newfoundland rail- 
way, would bring us to Grand Lake, where guides, 
boats and supplies were to be. The actual trip did not 
w^ork out quite according to schedule, on account of 
some delay in the arrival of articles ordered shipped 
from New^ York, not quite time enough having been 
allowed. 

Newfoundland is roughly triangular, the sides be- 
ing about three hundred and fifty miles each, and much 

1 08 



J 




Caribou Stag — / 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

indented with bays and long narrow fiords. St. John's 
lies on the extreme southeastern corner, and Port au 
Basques on the southwestern. A total population of 
about one hundred and forty thousand, of which St. 
John's has forty thousand and about all the remainder 
live on or near the coast, make a laborious and precari- 
ous living by and on the product of the seal, cod, and 
herring fisheries, which are almost the only productive 
industries. The climate is too boreal and the soil too 
barren to admit of much agriculture, and there is little 
timber fit for anything but pulp and firewood, but, in 
scenic beauty and as a home for game and fish, few if 
any lands surpass or even equal it. The lower levels 
are like the Temagami country, though the rivers arc 
finer, the hills higher and the whole landscape on a 
grander scale. The elevated plateaus, which make up 
a large part of the interior and are called "barrens," 
are unlike any country I have ever seen, and must re- 
semble the Scotch moors, though with much more 
woodland. They are a series of rocky ridges and 
knolls, often a hundred feet or more high, and 
a mile or more apart, divided by valleys con- 
taining streams, lakes and marshes, and dotted here 
and there with patches of densely growing spruces and 
balsams. Much of the higher land is covered with a 
growth of dwarf spruce and juniper, rarely exceeding 
three feet in height, and matted and tangled beyond 

no 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

description. It is too thick to walk through and not 
quite thick enough to walk on, and would be practical- 
ly impassable for civilized man, were it not for the car- 
ibou paths, which radiate in every direction and are 
beaten down by centuries of use. 

The caribou moss, "sphagnum" I think, forms a 
soft mass of a foot or more in depth, and holds water 
like a sponge. Everything below the ridges was soak- 
ing wet, and one's feet were in the water most of the 
time; a good stock of waterproof foot gear is therefore 
necessary for comfort. Boots are too noisy for stalk- 
ing, and moccasins are difficult to keep at all dry, so a 
lumberman's overshoe, or rubber moccasin with leather 
tops, would seem to be indicated and I shall try them 
this fall. 

The Newfoundland railway, a well-constructed 
narrow gauge line, runs from Port au Basques to St. 
John's, curving northward to about the center of the 
island and making a line of five hundred and forty 
miles in total length. An express train, with parlor and 
dining car, is run in each direction three times a week, 
with a mixed train on alternate days. In summer the 
express starts on time and is rarely very late; while the 
mixed train is likely to turn up anywhere from two to 
twenty-four hours after schedule time. In winter, 
which begins about October 15 and lasts until May, I 
understand that it is not unusual for trains to be run 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

three months apart and to be four months late in arriv- 
ing, but this is beyond my personal experience. 

The harbor of Port au Basques is a small basin, 
entered from the sea through a cleft or canyon and sur- 
rounded by rocky ridges, sparsely mottled with scrub- 
by vegetation and irregularly placed whitewashed 
cabins. One is reminded of pictures of Iceland 
and Greenland, but the railroad soon passes into a more 
attractive country, crosses or skirts several magnificent 
salmon rivers, and after a run of about one hundred 
miles, comes down to the splendid salt water fiord 
called "Bay of Islands," fifty miles long by a mile or 
two wide, and bordered by stately hills which are near- 
ly worthy of the name of mountains. Into the head of 
this bay flows the Humber river, a glorious salmon 
stream of large size, flowing between lofty hills, precipi- 
tous clififs, and all that is picturesque in landscape. As- 
cending this river it first widens out into Deer lake, and 
then contracts again into the upper Humber, into which 
flows the Junction river, the outlet of Grand lake and 
another superb salmon stream. The two log cabins 
which form Grand Lake Station are just west of the 
latter river, and there is a fine salmon pool immediately 
below the bridge. Grand lake, about seventy miles 
long and one to three miles wide, stretches off to the 
southwest, bordered by rapid slopes rising to the great 
upper barrens, a thousand feet above, promontories of 




Caribou Stag — 2 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

which make picturesque headlands, down which flow a 
series of dashing streams. 

The journey down Grand lake is made in dories, 
and parties can leave the lake and climb to the barrens 
at any one of several points, being practically sure of 
good shooting anywhere. We went down the lake some 
thirty or forty miles, and made the climb and journey 
over the barrens to our main camp very easily in one 
day. That is, it was easy for us, but how our guides 
climbed that fierce hill, and tramped across the scrub 
under their huge packs, was a wonder to me. They 
were thoroughly skilled woodsmen, keen sportsmen, 
willing, prompt and highly efficient; in fact, the best 
guides I have ever had, and were well satisfied to re- 
ceive a dollar and a half a day each, which also paid 
the hire of two dories. 

Caribou hunting here is real deer stalking, the 
game being often found and its size and value deter- 
mined with a powerful field glass at a mile or two away, 
and then approached with due regard for the wind and 
cover. The large stags are always quite light in color, 
showing, especially on the neck, a great deal of white, 
which increases as the season grows later, while the 
does, yearlings, calves, and young stags are much 
darker, often showing a good deal of black. A dis- 
tant white spot is always worthy of careful examina- 
tion and, if it prove to be a deer, his value as a trophy 

114 




^^ 



Caribou Sta^ — 3 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

can be often pretty well determined by his color, 
long before his antlers can be seen. Many of the 
does bear horns, though these are always small; but 
I saw no does, which had calves with them, that 
bore antlers, and think it possible that they are worn 
only by does that are barren that year, and hence can 
apply to the growth of horns the strength that nursing 
a calf would otherwise consume. The coat is very 
thick even in summer and, with the heavy body, makes 
the hornless does and calves look much like Jersey cat- 
tle in figure, though the coloration is black, gray and 
white instead of fawn, any reddish or brownish hue be- 
ing unusual and slight. A large stag will weigh nearly 
or quite five hundred pounds, and is therefore about 
twice the size of our deer, and half that of our elk. 
They seemed to me notably unsuspecting and easy of 
approach, far more so than any other of the cervidae, 
so that with reasonable care there was little difficulty in 
getting within good range; and, like the elk, they cer- 
tainly succumbed more quickly to wounds of the same 
gravity than the Virginia deer. 

In the early part of September the stags are begin- 
ning to shed the velvet, the biggest doing so first, my 
guides say. Does and fawns could occasionally be seen 
in the open all through the day; but most of the deer 
then pass the day in the woods, coming out when the 
sun is low and going back in the morning, so the shoot- 

ii6 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

ing is best done in the evening and at sunrise. One can 
get through the marshy valleys with ease, through the 
scrub or "bushes" with difficulty, and through the 
woods scarcely at all, so the game must be caught in the 
open. My guide and I sat on a little knoll one evening, 
watching the deer come out of the woods and wander 
over the marshes, when a yearling walked up within 
thirty yards of us, and refused to go away for some fif- 
teen minutes, though we stood in plain sight and pelted 
him with stones. He was a beautiful light iron gray 
and, as he stared and pranced in excitement, was a 
charming sight. 

It is well known that the Newfoundland caribou 
have particularly heavy and fine antlers, many having 
two large brow paddles, which often interlock, instead 
of one paddle and a single spike as seems to be generally 
the case in Maine and New Brunswick. Our two 
licenses entitled us to six heads, which we got in a very 
few days, and all were good specimens. My best head 
had thirty-six points, each antler measuring three feet 
two inches around the curve, and with a maximum 
spread of two feet eight inches, the horns being of good 
weight and very uniform. One of my companions got 
a much heavier and finer head, though the two horns 
were less alike. Two of our party were college boys, 
neither of whom had ever shot a deer, and they both 
got good heads. 

117 



FIELDS AND PASTURES NEW 

Shortage of supplies compelled us to get back to 
the railroad, and, after this deficiency was remedied, 
we wxnt about ten miles up the lake and camped by a 
river flowing into it. It was high noon and a bright day 
when we arrived, but I got out a light trout rod and 
began casting over a pool in front of the camp, using 
No. 8 trout flies. After taking two or three nice trout 
and a one-pound salmon, my flies swept into an eddy, 
sank a little and stopped dead. I struck and put quite 
a pull on and nothing happened, so said to my guide, 
'"That's queer, but it don't feel like a rock somehow." 
Just then there was a convulsion and a big, silvery, 
speckled fish shot out a good two feet. I eased him 
down, he rested a few seconds, made a short circle and 
jumped again. So he kept it up, never offering to run, 
but going out of the water just twenty times and getting 
half way out on the twenty-first, but finally was tired 
out and landed. He was my first salmon of any size, 
and a big fish for my tackle, though he only weighed 
six pounds. Next year I shall go properly equipped, 
fish systematically, and hope for something bigger. 

Taken all together, in ease of access, beauty, va- 
riety and number of fish and game, and interest of the 
sport, Newfoundland equals if it does not surpass any 
country I have visited. 



118 



Grilse On A Trout Rod 




ARGE salmon begin to run up the 
rivers of Newfoundland toward the 
end of June, and the best fishing 
comes early in July, while the time to 
shoot caribou is after September first. 
Few of us are able to make two such 
long trips in one year, and fewer still 
can devote a whole summer to sport, 
so that it seemed as if we must either take the caribou 
and regret the salmon, or be satisfied with the salmon 
and dispense with the deer. 

In September of last year I had a very successful 
trip after caribou, but was filled with longing to fish 
those superb rivers when their chief glory was on hand 
for business, so this year planned to reach the island 
about the middle of August, put in the first two weeks 
in fishing, and go up to the barrens about the time when 
the deer were cleaning their horns, so getting a fair 
sample of each sport. 

It was late on August twentieth when we reached 
the Junction river, and early next morning we began 
whipping that splendid stream, but to our' great disap- 
pointment three days' hardworkyieldedonly a few trout 
and one small grilse; so we broke camp and went up 
Grand lake, ten miles to Hind's brook. Here we found 



1 19 



GRILSE ON A TROUT ROD 

the water very low and no fish of any kind, so broke 
camp again, rowed to the Sandy Lake river, and went 
up that stream five or six miles to the first rapid with- 
out seeing a fish. I had my trout rod mounted and cast 
in every likely place with no rises, so, while the guides 
were getting ready to haul the dories up the rapid, 
I walked up the stream a few yards and cast again. As 
the flies circled over an eddy there was a tremendous 
rush and a gleam of silver, but no touch on the flies. 
Of course, I should have put on a stronger leader and 
a salmon fly and waited at least five minutes before 
casting again, but was too ignorant and too eager for 
this and cast again and again. That salmon rose six 
times and then went down in disgust and stayed down. 
I ordered the guides to find a good place and make 
camp, and our whole party proceeded to string them- 
selves along that rapid and whip the water. I put a 
small salmon fly on my light trout leader, went up to 
the head of the rapid and cast some distance above the 
first break. Instantly there was a convulsion in the 
water, a tremendous drag on the line, a leap into the 
air, and that fish started down the rapid, leaping every 
few feet, with myself splashing and scrambling 
through water and over rocks in his wake, while the 
reel screamed and the little rod bent almost to the 
breaking point. He bounded gaily past one of my com- 
panions, who cast wildly after him, seeing only the fish 



GRILSE ON A TROUT ROD 

and paying no attention to the man in tow. Him I ob- 
jurgated with what breath I could spare and continued 
my wild career, until my locomotive paused in the big 
pool below. There he circled, jumping every now and 
then, while I wound in line and got my breath, and at 
last drew him slowly toward my guide who stood ready 
to gaff. For some incomprehensible reason that guide, 
as the line came close to him, took hold of it; there was 
a little jerk against his hand, the light leader snapped 
and my fish was gone. 

Such a situation makes one realize how imperfect 
and inadequate are words for the complete expression 
of thought, but I did my poor best to be equal to the 
occasion. My line wasn't touched again during the 
whole trip, so perhaps all was said that was really 
necessary. 

There are four rapids on this stream below the foot 
of Deer lake, and there w^ere plenty of salmon in all 
of them. No large fish took our flies, only grilse run- 
ning from three to five pounds, so after the first day we 
put up the salmon rods and used only our six-ounce 
trout rods, with one No. 8 salmon fly, double hook — 
the Newfoundland rivers being so clear that a large fly 
is of no use. What sport we did have! We would lose 
at least two fish out of every three hooked, so we had 
all the fun and did not kill more fish than could be 
used, which is the perfection of fishing to my notion. 

121 



GRILSE ON A TROUT ROD 

Black bass? Pooh! Speckled trout? Stuff! 
Rainbow trout? Bosh! Grayling? Fiddle! I have 
caught them all over and over again, and, good though 
they are, they don't for an instant compare with the 
acrobatic grilse. The salmon is the king of fish, and to 
take grilse on a trout rod is as good sport as this world 
has to give. 





Caribou in Velvet — I 



After Caribou Again 




FTER more than a week of grilse fish- 
ing on the Sandy Lake river we 
started back to Grand lake, intending 
to go down it about thirty miles to the 
Narrows and back to our shooting 
ground of last year; but two guides, 
whom I sent to the station for sup- 
plies and letters, on their return re- 
ported that another party had started for the Narrows 
the day before. So we rowed down the big lake only 
about fifteen miles to a trail descending from the bar- 
rens, at a place called Harry's Hill and marked by a 
very prominent rocky headland bearing the name of 
Old Harry. This trail is excessively steep, and we 
camped below intending to make the climb in the 
morning. While supper was getting ready one of the 
guides shouted from the beach, "Caribou," and we all 
piled down there in a hurry. On a bold bare promon- 
tory five or six hundred feet above us stood a splendid 
stag, head up and antlers displayed to the best advan- 
tage, and posed there long enough to let us get the 
glasses and admire his fine horns, when. he was joined 
by a doe and strolled out of our sight. 

In the early morning the guides all loaded up with 
huge packs and we tackled the hill, and it was a hard 



125 



AFTER CxARIBOU AGAIN 

climb though much shorter than the grade at the Nar- 
rows; the trail, however, was plain and quite clear of 
fallen timber and very well beaten through the scrub 
which covers the upper part of the slope. After cross- 
ing a high ridge of bare red rock, and passing a little 
pond, near the shore of which were several caribou, 
none having good horns, we camped in a grove, trav- 
ersed by a rapid little stream, in which, by shifting a 
lot of boulders, we formed a bath tub, having a constant 
and copious supply of ice water. 

East of us lay a succession of rocky ridges, scrub 
covered slopes, and little lakes and ponds bordered by 
small trees, an ideal country for deer, and from this 
camp and one a few miles east of it we hunted for a 
week, getting nine good stags, all that our three licenses 
permitted. None of the heads were remarkable for 
New^foundland, though in Maine or New Brunswick 
they w^ould have been considered very fine. The fact 
is that we were a little too early, August twenty-eighth 
to September fifth, and the weather was too warm to be 
very favorable, for the deer came out of the woods late 
and went back just after sunrise. The antlers of all our 
stags were perfectly formed and of full size, but still in 
the velvet, though this could be readily peeled ofif 
leaving the horns in fine condition, and their necks were 
already white and shaggy, early as it was. 

Northeast of Harry's Hill is a wide expanse of 

126 




Caribou in Velvet — 2 



AFTER CARIBOU AGAIN 

woodland and marsh at a somewhat lower level and 
extending to Hind's lake several miles away. The 
numerous streams and ponds abounded in trout, and 
wild geese, which are reported to breed there, were 
quite common; but there seemed to be very few cari- 
bou except on the barrens and in the patches of wood- 
land bordering on them and dotting the low places. 
Here they were plentiful, though big stags with fine 
heads were scarce as usual. Does with one or more 
fawns were plenty and I found that my suggestion, that 
only the barren does might wear horns, did not always 
hold good, which shows the risk of generalizing from 
limited observation. The biggest and finest stag seen 
I ran across after my limit had been killed, so had to 
be satisfied with creeping up near him, counting the 
points of his splendid antlers, giving him a start and 
watching him run. The flesh of these stags was ex- 
cellent venison and the kidneys and livers, fried in their 
own fat or boiled with a few onions, were especially de- 
licious. 

My first stag was intercepted on his way back to 
the woods at daybreak, so it was only necessary to get 
into his line of march, wait until he came within a hun- 
dred yards and put the bullet where it would do the 
most good, at my leisure. He flinched sharply at the 
shot, but wheeled and went off at full gallop. The 
second bullet was over him, but the third, aimed at the 

128 



AFTER CARIBOU AGAIN 

root of the tail, caught him close to that spot and made 
him sit down in a hurry. The first ball had struck just 
back of the shoulders and gone clean through the center 
of both lungs, of course giving a mortal wound, but did 
not prevent his making very fast time for about a hun- 
dred yards and without any apparent difficulty. 

My second success was more interesting; Fred and 
I had tramped the bushes for several miles, and about 
concluded that all the stags had gone back to the woods 
and that we might as well go home, but before turning 
back I climbed a ridge and carefully swept the coun- 
try with my glass, particularly examining every one of 
the numerous light colored rocks which dotted every 
slope. A quadrant of the circle was covered without 
finding anything, but, when the glasses settled on a 
boulder half a mile due south, it suddenly changed 
into a good stag lying down, the bushes behind him 
having prevented his horns from showing to the eye. 
The wind was favorable, so we had only to consider 
the cover, and a thirty minutes' crawl and creep through 
the bushes brought us behind a big stone within a hun- 
dred yards of the unsuspecting deer. He never knew 
we were near him until I had counted his points, de- 
cided that it was better to take his head and not have 
to tramp that awful scrub any more, taken a careful 
sight and fired. The bullet struck the shoulder, cut 
the spine, the stag made a great lurch to one side and 

129 



AFTER CARIBOU AGAIN 

Struggled for a minute or two, but never got to his feet 
and was dead when I reached him. In both of these 
cases I was surprised at the loud and distinct sound 
made by the stroke of the thirty-three Winchester ball, 
which was sharp and clear as that made by a base hit 
and very like it. 

Having now all the heads coming to me I asked 
Fred to take out one of the party who had as yet seen 
no stag worth shooting, and Fred said, "I'll get him 
his deer if he'll w^alk." They left camp early next 
morning, with a couple of blankets and a little grub, 
and were back the following noon with three good 
heads, having seen over two hundred caribou. They 
had tramped straight south until about noon, dropped 
the pack in a clump of bushes and hunted until dark, 
going at least ten miles away from the baggage and 
shooting the three stags at widely separated points. 
Fred had then gone back in the dusk straight to where 
the pack had been left, and in the morning found the 
way again to each of the three deer, one after another. 
The country is all pretty much alike, with no particular 
landmarks, and so covered with patches of scrub that 
one cannot hold anywhere near a straight course. The 
guide must keep such a mental record as to certainly 
find his w^ay back to any point, follow the easiest path 
there is, circle difficulties, watch w^here he puts his foot 
at every step to avoid a fall, and at the same time see 

130 



yMM»«>- 




Caribou in Velvet — j 



AFTER CARIBOU AGAIN 

any deer, still or moving, standing or lying, around the 
whole horizon. To do all this without a fault requires 
woodcraft of the highest class, and such skill is a never 
ceasing wonder to the inexperienced. 

These three stags filled our permitted number, so 
we broke camp and packed everything to Grand lake 
the next day, got to the railway the following after- 
noon, and shifted the baggage, changed to civilized 
garb, and took the train for home the day after. 

The total expense of our trip, including three 
licenses at fifty dollars each, the hire of five men and 
two dories for a month, supplies for the whole party, 
traveling expenses of every kind for sixteen hundred 
miles and back again, and all incidentals except per- 
sonal outfit, was about two hundred and seventy-five 
dollars apiece for an outing of thirty-five days. For 
this we got nine stags, about forty salmon, abundance 
of trout, some ducks and ptarmigan, fine appetites and 
sound sleep with the health and strength they bring, 
and thirty days crowded full of the best kind of fun. 
In what other way could anyone get so much for so 
little? 




132 




Some Black Bass 

N Summit County, Ohio, the Cuya- 
hoga river cuts down through the 
carboniferous conglomerate, making 
a gorge of about three miles long, 
through which the stream rushes in a 
succession of rapids, pools and falls. 
In my boyhood a good many small 
mouth bass resided in this water, and 
their pursuit was the principal occupation of our sum- 
mers. Of course we had not attained to the skill neces- 
sary for fly fishing, nor was the necessary tackle there- 
for within the reach of our meagre pockets, so we got 
along with a bamboo pole, fitted with homemade 
guides, borrowed reels, and a can of live and lively 
chubs. Before long we got to know every inch of the 
fishable part, and every stone on the bottom. There 
were certain refuges which always held a bass, a new 
occupant coming in to take the place of his captured 
predecessor within a few days at most. 

The chub was hooked lightly through the lip and 
allowed to run down the current. When a strike came 
the bass would sail away, carrying the bait crosswise in 
his mouth and, after going a few yards, stop, turn the 
chub head first and start to swallow it. An immediate 
strike would simply pull the bait away, never hooking 



133 



SOME BLACK BASS 

the bass. At the first touch we dropped the tip, yielded 
line smoothly from the reel till the fish stopped, waited 
a few seconds more and then yanked. Two or three 
good bass, two pounds or so each, were a remarkably 
large day's catch. Big mouths are found in the small 
lakes draining into the Cuyahoga, but were very rarely 
caught in the swift stream. 

The reefs about the islands toward the western end 
of Lake Erie were famous bass ground thirty years 
ago, and a good many linger there yet, in spite of 
pounds and gill nets. The fishing is done in the open 
lake, often in a heavy roll, and the tackle used has to be 
strong and rather coarse. A two-ounce sinker was made 
fast at the end of the line, above which were from two 
to four hooks carrying four-inch minnows and very 
large flies, usually two of each. The boat was kept in 
motion and the sinker dragged along or near the bot- 
tom. Sometimes you struck a school, and for a while, 
short or long, were kept busy, often getting two or three 
big fellows on at once, when there was lots of disturb- 
ance. Most times you bumped your sinker along the 
bottom for hours without a touch. I have fished all 
day for a couple of bass, and have taken forty in a 
morning. These fish would average from a pound and 
a half to two pounds, anything over three pounds be- 
ing very large. May was the best time of year, but 
there was another run of fish in October. 

134 



SOME BLACK BASS 

The upper waters of the Ottawa, with its tribu- 
tary lakes and streams, is the real stamping ground of 
micropterus, and there they are larger, stronger and 
more frequent than anywhere else that I know about. 
Some of these lakes, deep in the wilderness, are prac- 
tically never fished and so contain just as many bass as 
can be supported. They grow very large and are tre- 
mendously strong and fierce; one of the big fellows on 
a light rod will keep you busy for a good while and 
teach you something new about rushes and jumps. 
These splendid warriors in dusky mail won't give in 
till they have to and, when you lift one into the boat, 
he hasn't a flop left in him. They are so strong that 
they are slow to die in the air. When the day's catch 
has been unduly large I have often put back the live- 
liest ones, after they had lain in the boat for an hour or 
so, usually in more or less water, and seen them gradu- 
ally move a little more and more, flap fins and tail 
faintly, then more strongly, straighten up and fall back 
on the side, finally sailing ofif all right. You can hook 
a bass, fight him to a finish, take him off and put him 
back in the lake, being sure that it won't hurt him a 
bit; in fact, I think he rather likes it. 

Personally I don't like the bass on the table, the 
musky flavor being disagreeable to me, no'r do I think 
him beautiful. But he is a real fighter, half battleship 
and half bulldog, and must be respected and admired 
even if you do not love him. 

135 




On Guides 

OMFORT in camp, success in sport, 
and often safety and life itself, de- 
pend on having skilled and willing 
guides. They pitch the tents, make 
the beds, cook and do all the other 
work — and the amount of labor in- 
volved in the simple housekeeping of 
a camp is surprising — paddle the 
canoes, carry the packs, find the good ground and the 
game, direct the stalk and trail the wounded quarry, 
lead the way through forest, thicket, fog, storm and 
darkness back to camp or bivouac; in fact, without 
their constant help and guidance, the wilderness would 
be impossible to us dwellers in the cities. The high 
specialization of civilized life tends to make each man 
a cog or lever in a great machine, doing certain limited 
work only, and depending on the co-operation of a 
multitude of others to produce anything complete and 
finished. The guide, depending on himself alone to 
meet all the varying emergencies of life, becomes a 
type of the all-around man, able to do anything in his 
own field, and developing remarkable ability in over- 
coming difficulties by simple methods and extraordi- 
nary skill in doing well a great variety of things. 

Life in the real wilderness seems to tend to make 



137 



ON GUIDES 

men honest, simple, efficient and trustworthy, and near- 
ly all the many guides I have known have been fully 
worthy of all these adjectives; but guides are human 
and no more able to resist continued temptation than 
most of us; so that one is only too apt to find those that 
hang around the great hotels develop the servile vices, 
do as little work as possible for the largest price obtain- 
able and spend their earnings on whiskey and cards. 
Such men are worse than useless and, if one has reason 
to suspect that he has one in the party, the only thing 
to do is to get rid of that man at once, no matter what 
the trouble and cost. Better lose a week's time, or even 
abandon your trip, than find yourself deep in the wilds 
with a guide who cannot be depended upon. 

Some guides have skill in woodcraft that is simply 
amazing. I remember once starting out from camp to 
find a spring that ought to have been, and possibly was, 
in a valley half a mile off, pushing my way through 
thick brush and over rotten ground, full of holes, for 
several hundred yards, and then discovering that my 
only pair of eye glasses had been lost in transit. Care- 
ful search along my back track failed to show them, 
and I got back into camp, hot and disgusted, sure that 
my eyes would not be of much use for the rest of the 
trip, and said as much to the guides who sat around the 
fire. Nobody said anything to speak of, and I did not 
even notice one of the Indians slip quietly away a little 

138 




Newfoundland Guide 



ON GUIDES 

after; but in about ten minutes he appeared again and 
without a word handed me the lost glasses. Now to 
find the proverbial needle in the hay stack would not 
have been half so difficult as to track me through that 
brush and pick that little thing out of its hiding place, 
but neither Steve nor his companions seemed to think 
the feat at all remarkable. 

Guides take great pride in their thorough knowl- 
edge of the woods and skill in woodcraft, are very pa- 
tient with the tenderfoot who doesn't pretend to be 
anything else, but most contemptuous of sportsman or 
guide who pretends to know how, but shows ignorance 
or incapacity on trial. On my last Newfoundland trip 
one of the guides, a great boaster, lost his way and had 
to climb a tree to put himself straight, and the others 
ridiculed him unmercifully, and will doubtless keep 
him reminded of it as long as he lives. To get good 
work from guides, or for that matter from any other 
assistants, it has always seemed to me the best method 
to give them general directions, let them do the thing 
in their own way without interference, and hold them 
responsible for results. Make your bargain in ad- 
vance, expect and see that you get good service and, 
after the work is all done and paid for, if the boys have 
done well and you feel like being generous, make them 
a free gift of what you think right. The tipping sys- 
tem, or extra pay for work that comes within the scope 

140 



■^"^'M^.-. $b * tji'^ 


Sis *•' '•*•■ is 




!^ i .- ^ *V 



-^^' 



[je*^i 



" ^^: 






ff-Tir-. 



■♦-t».* -s: 






Temagami Guides 



ON GUIDES 

of regular duty, is likely to be most unsatisfactory. It 
is also a mistake for the sportsman to do guides' work, 
except in case of emergency; they will let him do all 
of their work he wants to and think the less of him for 
doing it. 

A guide will highly appreciate skill on the part of 
the sportsman with rod, gun or rifle, and is apt to es- 
teem him in proportion to the amount displayed. Hav- 
ing fished several times last summer at Cascade lake 
with a type of the good class of guides, and having cast 
the fly with some skill and success, he said with en- 
thusiasm to some friends of mine who went there later, 
"Mr. Newberry is a fine fisherman and a fine man," 
which was as cordial a testimonial as one is likely to 
receive. 

It has always seemed to me a mistake to let a guide 
carry a gun or rod; there is plenty for them to do in 
assisting you, and one rod or rifle can secure all the fish 
or game needed, so why deplete the wilderness without 
necessity and to your own disadvantage. In big game 
shooting especially, if your guide carries a rifle, it is 
more than likely that he, and not you, will get the 
shots. 

One is constantly surprised at the handiness of his 
guides under adverse circumstances. I remember once 
in the Temagami country starting with two guides to 
get to a little lake over a four-mile portage. The trail 

142 



ON GUIDES 

was very rough, the luggage too heavy to take in one 
trip, it began to rain very hard, and the dusk caught us 
tw^o-thirds over the carry, with half the stuff two miles 
back and rain coming down in sheets. The boys 
dropped packs where they stood and started back for 
the other loads, while I took refuge under a balsam, lit 
a cigar and waited more than an hour for them to re- 
turn. It was completely dark when their steps were 
heard again, and raining as when Noah made his fa- 
mous voyage. One of the boys grabbed a bucket and 
the other an axe and disappeared into the wet dark, 
coming back in a minute or two with some birch bark, 
dead wood and a pail of water. In ten minutes a good 
fire was blazing just in front of a spread tent fly, and 
Steve started his cooking, while Will pitched the tent, 
cut balsam brush, shaking off the drops and giving it 
a hasty dry over the fire, made my bed, unrolled the 
blankets from their waterproof cover, and in an hour 
I was snug in dry blankets, with a good supper inside 
of me, and lulled gently to sleep by the rain and wind. 



^^ii 




143 




Trout I Have Met 

HE Eastern brook trout, Salvelinus 
fontinalis, red spotted, graceful, 
swift, bold and yet shy, pink fleshed 
and dainty, was my earliest love and 
still remains first in my affection and 
esteem. This fish is at his best in the 
cold and highly oxygenated water of 
rushing mountain streams and, though 
he tolerates warmer and stiller water up to a certain 
point, such an environment detracts greatly from his 
strength and spirit. With the coming of summer he 
vanishes from the main streams and seeks spring holes, 
the depths of lakes, and any other refuge from the 
warmth that he dislikes so much. Under favorable 
conditions this trout is the perfection of a game fish, 
while under different circumstances he may become 
heavy, sluggish, and little better than a chub. 

All fish seem to manifest such a variation in char- 
acter and conduct according to their environment. The 
rainbow trout, Salmo irideus, when taken in the cold 
water of the Yellowstone, is said to be dull and heavy, 
showing little spirit. In the Ausable river of Michi- 
gan, in the summer, they are very strong and fierce, but 
did not seem to me especially good on the table. In 
fact I formed rather an unfavorable opinion of this 



145 



TROUT I HAVE MET 

trout, based of course on limited experience, until a 
recent summer, when I met him in favorable sur- 
roundings. The west branch of the Ausable river of 
New York, passing through Wilmington Notch, drops 
eight hundred feet or so in about ten miles, and is rocky, 
shaded, clear, almost if not quite perfection. The 
stream still contains a remnant of the native fontinalis, 
and has been also stocked with irideus and fario. It is 
furiously fished by the natives in the spring and early 
summer and by July about all the fontinalis seem to 
have disappeared. In the swift water of the gorge, 
however, there linger a good many rainbows of good 
size, and these I had the pleasure of visiting through 
August of that year. 

This time, place and water seemed to exactly suit 
these fish, and better fly fishing I have never had, not 
even with grilse. They were very shy, so that one had 
to cast a long line and keep out of sight, would rarely 
rise a second time, unless one waited five minutes or so 
before casting again, as he would for salmon; would 
often rise short and settle back without touching the 
fly, always so when the sun was on the water. But, 
when the conditions were right, when a big fellow did 
come and did really mean it, when the strike told and 
the hook set, then look out for squalls. He would dance 
on his tail, stand on his head, change ends like a bron- 
cho, leap three feet clear and ten feet along, swim up 

146 




^ 



TROUT I HAVE MET 

falls and dash down them, head for every rock and 
snag in sight, in fact exhaust the category of fishy pyro- 
technics. Each of these rainbows would take as long 
to kill, and fight at least as hard, as a speckled trout of 
twice his size. They were brave and bounding beau- 
ties beyond question. 

The brown trout, Salmo fario, I did not find in the 
gorge at all, but took several good ones in the pools be- 
low. They were very shy and cautious, rarely rising 
until after sundown, and their play was long and 
strong, but heavy, slow and not exciting. Both these 
brown and rainbow trout were good on the table, 
though inferior to the speckled trout. Their flesh grew 
soft noticeably soon, those caught in the morning being 
often quite pulpy when dressed at dark, but a little salt 
and a night on the ice made them all right. 

Salmo purpuratus, the Rocky Mountain or cut- 
throat trout, I took in abundance in the mountain 
streams of Colorado, mainly in the Yampa river. 
They are closely allied to the rainbow and seem to me 
very like him, in the water and on the table, but none 
that I caught approached the New York rainbows in 
strength or activity. My fishing was done in August 
and September and they may well have been livelier 
early in the season — certainly they were less shy than 
jontinalis, for I repeatedly saw a good-sized fellow 
swing lazily up from the depths of a pool and take the 

148 



TROUT I HAVE MET 

fly in plain sight of me as I stood on the open bank with- 
out cover. These fish did not then lie in the swift water, 
but were in the pools near the edge of rapids. At the 
bottom of one such still pool I could plainly see two or 
three hundred trout, but no amount of casting over the 
surface would stir them. So I let my flies sink deep and 
could see a trout start up slowly, rise gently for a foot or 
so, suck in the fly and turn back, when a twitch hooked 
him. Three or four taken in this way exhausted the 
\ ein and no more would stir. 

For all these trout I used a light leader and No. lo 
flies. Abbey, Professor and Montreal for irideus, and 
black ant for purpuratus. Small flies are handy to cast 
and will hold firmly enough if the rod is managed well. 
Bigger flies of course have a stronger hold, but cannot 
be cast so accurately, splash more when they strike, are 
harder to set, and I think will not generally produce so 
full a creel. 




Cascade Lake 




Grilse And Other Fish 

N A recent issue of Forest and 
Stream, Mr. Brown comments on my 
little sketch of "Grilse on a Trout 
Rod" in such a kindly and sympa- 
thetic way as to take any sting out of 
his very courteously expressed sugges- 
tion, that my reference to trout, bass, 
and other fish may be hasty and inac- 
curate in substance and unkind in form, and that fur- 
ther experience would modify my opinion and lead me 
to express it more gently. Dififerences of opinion must 
arise on such matters, and they are too often stated 
without Mr. Brown's charm of manner and feeling. I 
am certain that the gentleman is a true fisherman, and 
a good one, and, in the name of our sainted Izaak Wal- 
ton, I tender him the right hand of fellowship. 

The true fisherman reverences and admires all the 
finny tribe, sees good in them all, and earnestly seeks 
the company of those he may find. He will revel with 
salmon, rejoice with trout, be delighted with bass, 
and pleased with pike, and, if denied the fairer 
and nobler of the race, can take comfort even in catfish. 
He will fish wherever and whenever possible and be 
happy in doing so; but he may and must have prefer- 
ences, and take greater proportionate joy as his quarry 



GRILSE AND OTHER FISH 

displays more and more of the dashing qualities which 
the title "game" denotes. John Stuart Mill says that 
the price of any commodity is fixed by a combination 
of the two factors "value in use and difficulty of attain- 
ment," and in matters of sport the latter element greatly 
predominates, for certainly the fact that fish and game 
are good on the table has but a very small part in creat- 
ing the strong passion that all sportsmen feel for their 
pursuit. Hope, uncertainty, surprise, and the full ex- 
ercise of all powers of mind and body in the struggle 
for success, are surely the main causes for the never 
failing charm of angling; fish are esteemed in the rela- 
tive proportion in which each variety brings these pas- 
sions and these powers into keen and energetic action, 
and I know of no form of sport that does this so com- 
pletely as fly-fishing. 

The value of any fisherman's opinion as to the 
relative merit of the various forms of his cherished 
sport must depend on the extent and variety of his ex- 
perience, and I see no way of proving that my own has 
any worth except that of modestly stating what I have 
seen and done. I am a fisherman by inheritance and 
family tradition, with a personal experience of over 
forty years, during the last thirty of which I have been 
devoted to the artificial fly; not that I despise or feel 
myself in any way superior to brothers of the angle 
who are addicted to other forms of the lure, but that 

152 



GRILSE AND OTHER FISH 

the fly suits me best. I have taken thousands of speck- 
led trout, from fingerlings up to four pounds, in New 
England, the Alleghanies, the Adirondacks, the Rock- 
ies, Ontario, Quebec, and elsewhere; have caught pur- 
puratus in Colorado, irideus in the West and in Michi- 
gan, grayling in the Ausable and Manistee, and small- 
mouth bass in countless places, best and largest in the 
wild waters around the upper Ottawa. I have trolled 
for bluefish outside of Sandy Hook, and caught them, 
together with Spanish mackerel and "sea trout," so- 
called, on light tackle in Florida; and last and best of 
all, have taken grilse in Newfoundland. Large salmon 
are as yet unknown to my personal experience, but, if 
all goes as planned, there will be a story to tell about 
them next summer. 

All this finny prey I esteem and delight in and 
hope to meet again and again, and do not love the 
others less because I love the salmon more. Each has 
its merits and its peculiar charm, but the salmon has the 
merits and charms of all the rest and in a higher de- 
gree. He is bold and brave as a bass and, like him, 
leaps and surges; wary and wily as a trout and, like 
him, dashes and runs; graceful and gay as a grayling, 
fierce as a bluefish, and more beautiful than either. 
Thev are the nobles of Piscia and he is its King. 



IS4 



Disappointment 




Forest and Stream, August 19, 1905. 

HAVE always longed to catch a big 
salmon, our delightful experience 
with Newfoundland grilse in August 
of last year much intensifying the de- 
sire, and was assured that plenty of 
them could be got in the same waters 
about July first. So the rather elab- 
orate preparations necessary for such 
a trip were promptly begun; guides were engaged; 
routes and rates decided on and transportation secured; 
supplies ordered from one firm to meet us at 
one point, and fishing tackle from another firm at an- 
other point, and my son and I left Cleveland late in 
June full of hope and confidence. In fact, some extra 
salt was ordered, so that the surplus salmon not used in 
camp could be salted and smoked, and we could fish 
with clear consciences, certain that none of our catch 
would be wasted. 

All the preliminaries went so smoothly that we 
might well have known that fortune had a bad turn in 
store for us at the last. Trains were on time; sleeping 
car berths were to be had at the last moment and usu- 
ally the last berths; tackle arrived at Port au Basques 

iss 



DISAPPOINTMENT 

on time and all right. Fred met us at St. Georges, re- 
porting the other guides waiting at Deer lake, and all 
the supplies turned up at the last station, as did trunks 
and other baggage, without mishap. Then came the 
reverse of the medal. I had planned the year before to 
fish the Willow Steady pools on the upper Humber, 
where my guides had the greatest sport in the previous 
season. Now there were still great masses of snow and 
ice on the north slope of the Central mountains, the 
Humber was in full flood, making a through route to 
the headwaters, and there were no fish in the pools 
at all. 

We decided to try Sandy Lake river, where there 
was such good sport with grilse last fall, and got to the 
first rapid after two days' delay. The water there was 
at least three feet higher than in the previous August, 
the river unrecognizable, and absolutely no salmon to 
be found though trout fairly swarmed. Two more 
wasted days brought us back to Flat Bay river on the 
western side of the island, a fine salmon stream and or- 
dinarily most productive, but now very low, with only 
a thin sheet of water purling through a waste of bowl- 
ders, and so clear that every stone and fish in it was as 
plain to our sight as we doubtless were to the latter. 
There are two fine pools just above the railway bridge, 
one beneath it, and two or three more in the half mile 
down to tide water, and these we flogged industriously, 

156 




Sea Trout and Brook Trout 



DISAPPOINTMENT 

getting to the water in the early dawn, taking a long 
rest through the bright hours, and then swinging the 
rods again until dark, with nothing to show for it all 
but a few grilse, a good deal bruised from climbing 
over rocks, and an occasional sea trout. 

In the lowermost pool were clearly visible ten or a 
dozen salmon, running from ten to thirty pounds in 
weight, and every now and then one of the big fellows 
would roll out on the surface, just to taunt us. Now 
and again capricious fancy, or perhaps a change of fly, 
would make one rise to a cast, make a great surge in 
the water, fill us with hope and then settle back without 
a touch. So it went for three days until even my guides 
— good sportsmen and law-abiding citizens — began to 
drop into lurid language and express unhallowed 
wishes for dynamite or a net; but we kept our tempers 
pretty well, flogged away with the big rods, fought flies 
day and night, and hoped for better things to come. 

Now we had an experience of the courtesy of Eng- 
lish officers and gentlemen. Our two rods were more 
than sufficient for this lower river, and it is not custom- 
ary to intrude on a previously established party, but 
two or three officers from a gunboat then at St. Georges 
came down and camped on the lower pools, flailing 
them night and day. We were told they would only 
stay for a day or two, so kept away from those pools; 
but I strolled down, met one of the party and told him 

IS8 



DISAPPOINTMENT 

that we were in camp at the bridge and had been fishing 
those pools for three days, but would leave them alone 
until their party was gone. They expressed regret to 
have interfered with us and said they were leaving next 
morning. That afternoon, while I was waiting at the 
pools above the bridge for the sun to drop a little fur- 
ther, one of this party appeared and promptly caught 
a grilse out of the pool I was watching. I walked over 
there and politely suggested that it was not quite fair, 
after we had left them the best pools, for them to also 
fish the small and inferior remnant of water in front of 
our camp, and this officer declared he had misunder- 
stood the matter, apologized and departed, taking with 
him the only fish I saw that night. The cap sheaf was 
put on, however, when the other two men appeared 
early the next afternoon and thrashed those same pools 
all over again, to a running accompaniment of curses 
from my guides, in which I felt rather inclined to join. 
This party left the next day, having taken three 
large salmon and a lot of grilse from our pet lower pool, 
and we put in a week more hard work over this and the 
Red pools, some three miles up the river, without get- 
ting hold of a single salmon above five pounds. Then we 
both grew so sick, tired and disgusted that we would 
not have stayed a day longer for all the fish in New- 
foundland, gave it up, scored the trip a failure and 
came home. All the way down fishermen fairly 

159 



DISAPPOINTMENT 

swarmed, every available pool, on any river visible 
from the train, being occupied by one or more men 
wielding big rods, according to general report with 
small success. 

"Fishing with the fly" carries two meanings, one 
patent to the general public and another which comes 
home with particular force to those who have pursued 
Salmo salar in his haunts. The lordly salmon selects 
for his visits to fresh water the season and the country 
in which the insect plague is at its worst, and how bad 
this is only experience will teach. Certainly the hordes 
of flies that swarmed about us, and made ordinary com- 
fort attainable only by constant thought and precaution, 
was far beyond my experience or imagination, large as 
both of these already were. During the daylight hours, 
from five in the morning to eight at night in the north- 
ern summer, the black fly swarmed, with a thirst for 
gore that made their personal safety a matter of indif- 
ference and a persistence that made nets of any kind 
nearly useless; coming in millions, creeping like a ser- 
pent, biting like a bulldog and entirely indifferent to 
being squashed. The cold nights of the north have 
caused the mosquito to pretty well abandon the noc- 
turnal habits which he displays in softer climates, and 
to carry on his pernicious activity regardless of day- 
light. Among the trees and bushes they swarm beyond 
estimating, but the strong winds that generally blow all 

1 60 



DISAPPOINTMENT 

day keep them pretty well away from open and exposed 
spots, so that a refuge can generally be found where 
they are not beyond endurance. They are active until 
about nine at night, and start in again with the first 
light of morning, when they are at their very worst. A 
faint idea of their numbers will be given by the fact 
that I once killed twenty-six by a single slap on my 
guide's back as he sat by a salmon pool. 

It is difficult to make it clear how great an annoy- 
ance the constant plague is. By keeping all exposed 
parts well smeared with dope, renewed at intervals of 
not more than an hour (we two used nearly a pint of 
oil of citronella in eighteen days), and using a little 
tent of mosquito netting, well tucked in, to cover the 
head and hands at night, one can escape being badly 
bitten, but the brutes give you no rest; dressing, wash- 
ing, bathing, or anything else that exposes the body is 
difficult to effect without suffering acutely, and it re- 
quires a great deal of very good sport to make up for 
the constant discomfort caused by these wretched 
pests. When Moses induced Jehovah to send a plague 
of flies upon Egypt he showed an expert knowledge of 
the infinitely disagreeable. 

In the Sandy Lake stream we found abundance of 
bright-colored and active brook trout, so many, in fact, 
that catching them was soon not amusing; but during 
the first two days on Flat Bay brook saw no trout at all. 

i6i 



DISAPPOINTMENT 

The third morning a handsome silvery fish took my 
salmon fly, and the trout rod took half a dozen more 
from the same pool, and after that we generally got 
several every morning, which, I suppose, had run in 
from salt water the night before. These were the famed 
"sea trout," concerning whose identity with fontinalis 
there has been so much controversy. Naturalists, I 
think, are now agreed that these are only the common 
brook trout gone to sea, and that, after a short stay in 
fresh water, they resume the usual appearance of that 
fish, but the differences, both in shape and color, are so 
great that it is difficult at first to accept this view, cor- 
rect as it probably is. 

These fresh run fish were deepest in the center of 
the body, tapering decidedly toward tail and head, the 
latter being triangular with upper and lower lines near- 
ly straight and muzzle acute. The back was dark sea- 
green without vermiculations or spots, though the dor- 
sal and caudal bore some lighter mottling. The sides 
showed some greenish shading toward the top, the rest 
of the fish being bright silver and the fins streaked with 
sea-green. Usually there was no red tinge of any kind, 
though a few specimens showed two or three very faint 
pinkish spots. The two trout shown in the first photo- 
graph were taken at the Red Rock pools, some four 
miles up stream, on the same morning, and were of ex- 
actly the same length, one being a sea trout and the 

162 




Sea Trout afid Grilse 



DISAPPOINTMENT 

Other a typical brook trout. The former had doubt- 
less been in the river for some days and was decidedly 
darker than the fresh run specimens taken lower down, 
was seventeen and one-half inches long and weighed 
two pounds and six ounces. The latter was seventeen 
and one-half inches long, weighed two pounds and two 
ounces, had the body elongated, the head elliptical with 
upper and lower lines strongly curved, and the muzzle 
rounded. Back, dark greenish-brown, with prominent 
vermicular markings in lighter shade, sides light 
brownish-gold with a great number of vivid carmine 
and pink spots, belly silvery. Fins edged with white 
and balance red with dark streaks. The whole body 
was sufifused with a strong purplish glow fading to pink 
on the belly. This fish had evidently not been in the 
salt water that year, if ever. 

The second photograph shows the same sea trout 
with a grilse caught the same morning. Unfortunate- 
ly, the latter was unusually long and gaunt, and there- 
fore much less like the trout in shape than most grilse, 
but the coloration of the two fish was very similar. 
Curiously enough all these sea trout acted like salmon, 
taking the fly under water, not one making a clean rise 
or more than a mere break on the surface. The one 
figured made no splash at all and lay so quiet that I 
thought the fly was on a stick and started my guide into 
the pool to clear it, when it seemed that the line was 

164 



DISAPPOINTMENT 

moving very slowly up stream. At first I thought this 
only the illusion which, when you have been looking 
steadily at moving water, makes any fixed object seem 
to move in the opposite direction; but in a moment or 
two a sudden rush removed any doubt, and it was a 
good ten minutes before he came to net. The flesh, 
both of the fresh run sea trout and salmon, was deci- 
dedly hard, tough and springy under the teeth, so much 
so as to make them quite inferior for the table to either 
the brook trout or to the grilse taken late in August of 
the previous year. 




165 



Some Failures 




|N TALES of sport one is apt to dwell 
on his successes and to pass over the 
times when fortune had been adverse, 
so that the hearer, if trusting and 
credulous, as all hearers ought to be, 
must think that the sportsman, once 
in the wilderness, is certain to find 
game quickly and easily and sure to 
kill it when found; so the first experience of a novice 
in the field, with its long tramps, days of hard work 
without seeing game and incomprehensible misses, is 
dreadfully disappointing. The best of us often work 
very hard and long without getting a chance, and fail 
to improve the chance when it comes; yet there is pleas- 
ure in hard work well done even without reward, and 
in retrospect both success and failure are pleasant. 
Some of the times when my opportunities were not 
properly improved are now to be told of. 




167 



SOME FAILURES 

BEAR. 

In the country about Lake Temagami black bear 
are quite plentiful and the Indian trappers bring in 
many skins every year, but they say that bears are very 
rarely seen even where they are most numerous, and 
that practically all they get are trapped before being 
shot. The Ojibways surround the hunting of "mokwa" 
with ceremonies of a quasi-religious character, one of 
which is that the skull must be hung by running water, 
and I saw at least forty skulls of bear hanging on small 
trees at one point of the Lemabin river, so there must 
be a good many about. The only black bear I ever 
shot at was on the edge of the Montreal river, a little 
way below the Mattawabika falls, the last name 
meaning "the rocky meeting place of the waters." We 
were traveling up the river in our birches against wind 
and current when this bear appeared on the bank, dis- 
appeared again, came back and finally climbed out on 
a "sweeper," as dead trees extending out over the water 
are called. He was a very big and black fellow and 
showed up finely. My rifle was in its case and the case 
packed in my war bag, but was finally dragged out, 
put together and loaded, with one eye on the bear as he 
came and went, evidently seeing us and being very un- 
easy but retained by some irresistible attraction, which 
afterward proved to be the carcass of a moose caught 
in some drift wood. A birch canoe yields to every rip- 

i68 



SOME FAILURES 

pie of water or breath of wind and the bead of my 
front sight danced wildly about, so I had to pull when 
it swung somewhere near his shoulder. At the report 
the bear went into the river with a great splash, the 
guides sang out, ''You've got him," and for a moment 
everybody was jubilant. The next instant a black stern 
vanished into the bush, throwing a fountain of chips, 
grass and leaves behind its frantic clawings, and that 
was the last we saw of that bear. A bullet mark in a 
cedar trunk showed that I had overshot an inch or so, 
v/hich, let us hope, was due to the wabbling of the 
canoe, and not to buck fever, if one can use that term 
in a wider sense than it literally has. The next time I 
will land on the opposite bank, creep up through the 
bushes, take a steady rest and get my bear, but that next 
time hasn't come yet. 




ANTELOPE. 

California Park, an irregular oval, of about ten 
miles by five, covered with thickly growing sage brush 
and broken up by ridges, knolls and draws, and abound- 
ing in antelope which, as our cook used to say, "pass 

169 



SOME FAILURES 

their time in gettin' scared and puUin' their freight," 
lies just below the southern slope of Bear's Ears peak 
in northwestern Colorado, and probably has not 
changed in any particular since we hunted there in 
1894. There was then no difficulty in finding a band of 
from twenty to fifty at any time, but considerable in 
getting near enough for a successful shot; for the ante- 
lope has wonderful sight and, long before we had seen 
them, had "counted the buttons on our coats and made 
up their minds where to run to next," as a western au- 
thority puts it. Percy and I put in a whole morning 
chasing those elusive beasts, who delighted in running 
past us at four or five hundred yards and tempting us 
to waste cartridges, a practice which had earned them 
the name of "the ammunition maker's friend." Finally, 
by making a long trip to a distant ridge, leaving our 
horses, crawling to the top and peeping through the 
sage, we did get sight of a good band without scaring 
them; so made a long detour and crawled some hun- 
dred yards through a dry creek bed and to the top of a 
little knoll, which I estimated to be about three hun- 
dred yards from the game. It did not seem possible to 
get nearer and Percy gave me the first chance, so I 
hoisted the Lyman sight to what would be somewhere 
near proper for the range and took a steady shot at the 
neck of the biggest buck. He staggered but did not 
fall and we made out through the glasses that his left 

170 



SOME FAILURES 

fore leg was broken close below the body. In a moment 
the band started off to the right with the broken legged 
one making good speed along with them. Percy ran 
like an antelope, and there is nothing faster, along a 
ridge and over a hill, and in a moment two booms of 
his big rifle, a double express taking one hundred and 
seventy-five grains of powder and six hundred and fifty 
of lead, came back to me. He missed clean with both 
barrels. Meanwhile another band, which had been in 
a draw below and close to us and not seen at all, circled 
the knoll I was on and scurried up the opposite hill, 
giving a lovely chance at about seventy-five yards. Last 
of all was a splendid buck with big and beautiful horns. 
I took a dead aim at the shoulder and fired with no ef- 
fect; a second shot with equally careful aim w^as just as 
fruitful, and two more were exactly as effective as the 
first two. After the band had vanished over the hill, 
almost running over Percy and his empty gun, I took 
account of stock and realized that I had been shooting 
at seventy-five yards, with sights set for three hundred. 
Comment is inadequate. 

Timid and cautious as he usually is the antelope 
sometimes succumbs to his curiosity at a suddenly ap- 
pearing or unrecognized object. As we crossed a ridge 
after breaking camp and came out from behind a little 
fringe of scrub oak, there stood a fine buck within a 
hundred and fifty yards and staring fixedly at us. My 

i/i 



SOME FAILURES 

brother snatched his rifle from the sheath, jumped from 
his horse, and fired two shots before he got the range, 
but the third ball went clean through the middle of the 
buck just back of the shoulder. He gave the unmistak- 
able shudder which marks a hit and rushed down the 
hill into a maze of scrub filling a little gulch. Our dog 
soon routed him out of that and the pair ran like the 
wind for more than half a mile, when the buck turned 
to bay, fighting ofTf the dog most vigorously while we 
were coming up, and only falling when we were quite 
close. The body lay in a perfect lake of blood, which 
had poured from the double opening through the 
center of both lungs made by the forty-five caliber bul- 
let. The wound would have brought down an elk with- 
in two minutes and a deer in five or less, but that ante- 
lope endured it for at least twenty before falling. 




ELK. 



Just as we got back to the horses after our fiasco 
with the antelope Percy called my attention to what at 
first seemed a string of horses, trotting across the park 
diagonally toward our right and a mile or so away. 



172 



SOME FAILURES 

The glass showed them to be a band of five cow elk, 
with a good stag at the rear of the line and herding his 
wives along. Percy set ofJ his broncho at a furious run, 
up and down hill through the stifif sage, leaping water- 
courses and rocks, and evidently bound to break his 
neck or cut off those elk. Such riding over such ground 
is not much to my fancy, but I had to keep up with the 
procession, so put my heels into my black, yelled to en- 
courage him, and away we both went at a fearful pace 
over the worst ground possible, taking a diagonal aim 
to intersect the course of the game. A mile or so of 
such rough riding brought us to a knoll about two hun- 
dred yards from the elk and we could evidently get no 
nearer, so jumped ofif our horses and opened fire. As 
the first ball struck close to them the band changed 
their long swinging trot to a wild gallop and kept this 
up till clear out of range, while our big rifles roared 
and the bullets knocked up the dust behind, before, be- 
yond and between them, in fact about everywhere but 
in the right place. The man who can certainly bring 
down running game at from two to three hundred 
yards is more common in books than in the field, I 
think, at all events neither of us could do it that day. 

When the echoes quieted down a little we turned 
to remount, and there were our two horses, with trail- 
ing reins, two hundred yards ofif and making at a steady 
amble for camp, six or seven miles away. I was per- 

1/3 



SOME FAILURES 

fectly helpless in such an emergency, and should have 
had to let the horses go and walk to camp; but Percy, 
a very strong man and a determined sort of a fellow, 
dropped his gun and ran, shouted, and I fear swore a 
little, until somehow or other he managed to check 
those abominable beasts and came back leading them 
both, thus saving us from a long and hard tramp home. 




CARIBOU. 

On the first trip to Newfoundland I made the in- 
excusable blunder of taking a new rifle into the field 
without careful examination of the sights, and of start- 
ing out for the first morning's hunt without testing it. 
We ran on to a huge stag, with splendid spreading ant- 
lers and a brilliant white neck, within a mile or so of 
camp and he gave me a standing broadside shot at 
about a hundred and fifty yards. The bullet went three 
feet too low, cutting the long grass only half way be- 
tween us. The stag jumped off a few feet and stood 
again and of course the error was over-corrected and 
the second shot too high; the next too low, the fourth 
too high again and, becoming weary of the racket, the 

174 



SOME FAILURES 

deer skipped out unhurt. Examination and test showed 
a high Lyman front sight with a low buckhorn rear 
sight, and that it was necessary to put up the rear sight 
three notches to anywhere near equalize the two. Even 
then I could not seem to shoot uniformly with it, doubt- 
less because my failing eyes could not see the rear sight 
distinctly and so get the bead into the right place every 
time. 

Before the next trip I put a Lyman rear sight on 
this gun, and it shot perfectly afterward, but then there 
were no gunmakers handy, so we had to adjust the 
sights as well as possible and go out with a weapon I 
could not be sure of. Three days' search did not develop 
any good head, so we moved camp several miles into 
an undisturbed region where caribou were very plenty. 
The first day out we saw a big-bodied fellow standing 
on the sky line of a hill at least a mile away, so far off 
that even the glass would not show his head, but his size 
showed that he was a good stag. Having worked our 
way through the bushes to the edge of a little pond at 
the foot of the hill we saw a young stag lying down on a 
small ridge close to us, in such a position that he could 
not be passed without giving him our wind and prob- 
ably frightening both. As we sat on a ledge to consider 
matters there was a sudden clatter up the hill, and the 
big deer came scurrying down a sort of trail that went 
up the breast of the ridge between two knolls. As he 

175 



SOME FAILURES 

passed about a hundred yards ofif my guide shouted 
and the stag stopped dead. I took careful aim at his 
shoulder, but shot low and broke his right foreleg well 
above the knee. Up the trail he galloped on three legs, 
while I fired three more shots without result and, feel- 
ing in my pocket for more shells, was horrified to find 
that there was just one left, the cartridges not having 
been shifted when my coat was changed on starting out. 
The stag had not seen us and did not know where to 
run to and there was just a chance of saving him with 
that one bullet, so we scurried round the lower hill, 
keeping just below the crest and watching him through 
the bushes. It was pathetic to see the poor beast, in his 
pain and perplexity, swinging that shattered leg and 
hobbling first in one direction and then in another, till 
finally he lay down near a big rock at the crest. We 
kept on our circle until the rock was between us and 
him, and then crawled up the hill most cautiously, 
watching the points of his horns, ready to shoot if he 
jumped, and making a study of every foot of progress. 
Our silent moccasins made no sound to alarm him, and 
I first worked up within fifty yards, then to twenty, and 
at last lay on one side of the rock within twenty feet of 
the stag on the other. Then my feet came noiselessly 
under me and I stood up ready to shoot. The poor 
fellow rolled a terrified eye at me and scrambled to his 

176 



SOME FAILURES 

feet, but of course at that distance one could not miss 
and he dropped with my last bullet through his heart. 
One with sympathies at all sensitive needs either 
the spur of necessity, or the excitement that only in- 
experience can bring, to make him eager to kill any- 
thing so beautiful and harmless as a deer and blind him 
to the suffering he causes. Now that I have good heads 
of most of our cervidae, conscience has begun to trouble 
me and the brutal side of the sport is growing too prom- 
inent for comfort, so my last big game shooting has 
probably been done. Fish are not so sensitive, appeal 
less to our sympathies, and it is not such dreadfully 
hard work to get them, so their pursuit is better suited 
to the middle-aged and conscientious, to the first of 
which categories I certainly belong and, let us hope, to 
the last also. 




177 



Fish And Game Hogs 



.1 




=^ 


^ 



HE primal need of living things is 2 
supply of food which must be ob- 
tained from other living things, so the 
chase, first of occupations, is a funda- 
mental instinct. Joy in pursuit and 
passion for slaughter appear even 
among the fishes and reach an appall- 
ing development among the carnivora. 
It became the chief delight of primitive man and sav- 
age, and civilization has only begun to exert a restrain- 
ing influence on these basic yearnings. The enormous 
bags of driven game made by royalty, the battues of 
pheasants in English preserves, the slaughter of our pas- 
senger pigeons in their nesting places, the extermination 
of the buffalo, all bear witness to the present strength 
of these primeval instincts, and the rapid disappear- 
ance of fish and game shows their destructive power. 

The first game laws had for their purpose to pre- 
serve game for a favored class only, prohibiting all 
others from taking it, even on lands cultivated by them- 
selves, and providing the most cruel penalties for any 
violation of their provisions. The need of food, nat- 
ural love of sport, and charm of the forbidden, all com- 
bined to make the peasantry a class of poachers, and, 
still worse, to arouse a hatred and contempt for such 

179 



FISH AND GAME HOGS 

Statutes, still surviving as an obstacle to the enforcement 
of our present humane and public spirited laws for the 
protection of game and fish, which only long time and 
laborious education can entirely remove. There is rea- 
son to hope that the public will be brought to see the 
wisdom of these laws and to insist on their enforce- 
ment, before there are no game and fish left to protect, 
the change in general feeling and conduct over most of 
the country, during the last few years, being already 
marked. 

However, sportsmen generally are coming to be 
governed by rules which have only the sanction of pub- 
lic opinion, the penalty of the violation of which is 
only the general condemnation of gentlemen and good 
fellows. No man worthy of the honored name of 
sportsman will now shoot a sitting game bird, or 
butcher a swimming deer, whether forbidden by law 
or not, and the killing of fish or game out of season is 
coming to be condemned with almost equal severity. 
To limit one's bag to reasonable size is now both ad- 
vocated as a rule and followed as a practice, and those 
who refuse to be governed by any such restraint have 
come to be designated by the contemptuous and oppro- 
brious epithet which heads this chapter. 

One who kills more than a reasonable amount of 
game, finned, furred or feathered, blunts his own en- 
joyment by satiety, cuts ofT the generations to come, 

1 80 



FISH AND GAME HOGS 

from which he and others might have sport, develops 
in himself that joy in limitless slaughter seen in the 
wolf and the savage, rejoices in death and destruction 
without reason or justification and sinks back toward 
the brute from which man has so slowly and painfully 
raised himself. Man must eat, and give death to others 
that he may do so, and he may properly rejoice in try- 
ing to the utmost limit both mind and body in the pur- 
suit of his quarry; but, as the human race rises to higher 
planes of development, pity and mercy modify our 
beast inheritance of cruelty, and reason limits passion 
and appetite, so that now we feel that unnecessary and 
malicious slaughter is the mark of devils and not of 
men. 

The rule of moderation in sport must be first based 
on the economic motive of preventing the diminution 
of game and the consequent destruction of a valuable 
provision for the future. Moral or sentimental reasons 
give an additional sanction, like the satisfaction 
that one gets from personal honesty, which is added to 
the actual gain which that quality seems to bring in the 
long run. Whether a given bag causes an unreasonable 
lessening of future generations must depend on the cir- 
cumstances of each particular case. There- are lakes in 
Northern Canada into which a line does not fall more 
than once a year, stocked with bass or trout up to the 
limit that the waters can support, and kept down only 

i8i 



FISH AND GAME HOGS 

by cannibalism among themselves. There to catch off 
a lot of the big fellows merely gives more little ones a 
chance to reach maturity. On such waters restraint 
from economic reasons alone is insufficient, and one 
must call on other principles, such as unwillingness to 
take life without good and sufficient cause, hatred of 
waste, pity and mercy, to control one's conduct. The 
fact that a convenient lumbercamp or Indian village 
enables one to dispose of a large bag, without waste, 
might in the northern wilderness be entirely sufficient 
to justify the taking of such an amount of fish or game 
as could never be approved in a more settled region. 
Unrestrained fishing would quickly deplete our fresh 
waters, which are of limited extent, while it might have 
no effect whatever in diminishing the swarming multi- 
tudes of the ocean. One who has seen the myriads of 
the Florida reef, preying on each other and so making 
room for the survivors to swim, realizes that in the 
ocean all that man can do in the way of destruction is as 
nothing to nature's other forces of slaughter. What 
fish one takes are only so many less to eat smaller fish, 
and be in turn eaten by bigger ones. One may there 
allow himself say a single day in which to catch as 
many big, carnivorous, rapacious destroyers as he can, 
whether he can use all the catch or not, and may do it 
again if a fleet of spongers, or a railway construction 
gang, are near enough so that the fish will not be 

182 



FISH AND GAME HOGS 

wasted. Except in such an abnormal case I have always 
governed my own conduct, even in the wildest country, 
by the rule of taking no more game or fish than my 
party could reasonably use, and have found this method 
of regulating the bag, easy, simple, and satisfactory, 
while in more settled country my limit is always put 
far short of that allowable in the wilds. In big game 
shooting some waste is unavoidable, for a very few 
good heads are accompanied by an amount of meat that 
no ordinary party can possibly consume. 

The late editor of one of our magazines, devoted 
to sport, was so strongly in favor of game preservation 
as to have, at times, gone beyond the bounds of good 
sense in his ideas and of good manners in their expres- 
sion. By unassisted wisdom he determined just how 
many of each particular kind of game or fish one man 
should take in one day, announcing his decision, ex 
cathedra, without allowance for different conditions or 
circumstances, evidently feeling and almost saying that 
any question of his dictum w^as blasphemy and any vio- 
lation of his order a crime. Such ill-regulated think- 
ing and writing is to be deplored, both as a painful ex- 
hibition of unrestrained passion, and as checking the 
growing tendency toward reason and m'oderation in 
sport through, often, by denunciation for which there is 
no sufficient cause, arousing antagonism and resent- 

183 



FISH AND GAME HOGS 

ment. Fortunately this gentleman's journalistic ac- 
tivity has now ceased. 



.r-.3y»«0*«> 




184 



Other Fish On The Fly 



F" ' 


■r "^ 


■ 




P^w 



HE delicacy of the appliances used, 
the convenience of having everything 
needed immediately accessible, the 
stimulating shock to the nerves when 
a great fish bursts out of quiet water, 
the freedom from the necessity of 
hunting for bait, keeping it alive in 
transport and use, and handling what 
is likely to be wet, slimy, squashy and otherwise dis- 
gusting, are all very strong reasons for preferring fly 
fishing to the use of bait; but my own very great pref- 
erence for the former comes, I think, chiefly from the 
fact that there is so much room for improving one's 
ability in the art and gradual progress toward perfec- 
tion, which is of course never reached. Fish may often 
be taken with the fly at times and places where no other 
method will be nearly so effective, or perhaps success- 
ful at all, so the acquirement of this talent is likely to 
much extend the true fisherman's opportunities for 
happiness. 

The salmonidne are so far the usual object pur- 
sued in fly fishing that the term has become associated 
with them, and one generally thinks of this form of 
sport as referring to trout or salmon only. Nearly all 
fish of predatory and active habit may, however, be 

i8s 



OTHER FISH ON THE FLY 

taken with the artificial fly, if time and place be favor- 
able, and very good fun may be had with fly tackle, 
where the salmonidae do not exist, if the fisherman will 
make a study of local conditions. We have all heard 
that black bass will take the fly, but few of us, I think, 
have often seen them do so; in my own experience bass 
would not often rise at all and, even when they could 
be induced to do it, much greater success was obtained 
by trolling with the flies or, still better, a small, bright 
spinner with a red fly attached to it. With this rig one 
can have as good bass fishing in the wild and unfished 
lakes of the Temagami country as could possibly be 
wished for, and these bass were a revelation to me of 
how big a fight a bass could put up. On Bear Lake 1 
began by putting out two light rods, one armed with a 
small cyclone spinner and red fly and the other with a 
white casting spoon, and inside of two minutes had a 
three pounder on each rod at the same time. Of course 
there was nothing to do but to wedge one rod between 
my knees and attend to the other, but both fish proved 
to be well hooked and, after the first was landed, the 
second was still there and was boated in his turn. I 
used only one rod after that and it would in an hour 
supply all the fish we could possibly use in a day, so 
our fishing each day was short. 

In the eavly spring small lake trout have occa- 
sionally risen to my flies when casting for fontinalis, 

i86 



Mf 



mmmmmtlSmmm 



-"m 




Lake and Speckled Trout 



OTHER FISH ON THE FLY 

and been supposed to be the latter until the forked tail 
showed the difference, but this degenerate member of a 
noble family is apt to stick to the depths at most times. 
Toward the end of September they come onto the shal- 
lows and offer pretty good sport to light trolling tackle, 
but at best they are rather sluggish fish and fight more 
like a pike than a trout. In Temagami they abound 
and on account of their large size and great numbers 
fishing for them is fairly amusing, especially as the 
Indians at Bear Island are always glad of any that can 
be spared, and so one can catch a good many without 
pricks of conscience. 

Pike will occasionally take the fly. I have caught 
only small ones in that way myself, but saw a twelve- 
pounder taken on a large scarlet ibis at Meacham Lake 
last spring. Walleyed pike have taken the fly for me 
in the rapids of the upper Ottawa, but the spinner was 
much more attractive to them. Yellow perch prefer 
the minnow or other bait, but I have seen them strike at 
flies and be caught on them. Spotted weakfish, small 
bluefish and Spanish mackerel can be caught in great 
numbers in Biscayne Bay and other Florida waters on 
mullet bait, spoon or artificial minnow, and the fly will 
take them sometimes. Doubtless persistent trial would 
prove that many salt water fish could be caught in the 
latter way also. 

The beautiful and active white bass of the great 

t88 



OTHER FISH ON THE FLY 

lakes will rise boldly to the fly and give excellent sport, 
at favorable places and times. They seem to always 
travel in schools and to actively compete among them- 
selves for anything that looks like food. Any good- 
sized, noticeable fly seems to be effective, the plain or 
loyal coachman on a number four hook having given 
me the best results. To get good fly fishing for white 
bass one should find a place where the water is clear 
and moving in a current and try for them there in July 
or August. An ideal place is at the trestle work open- 
ings in the great embankment of the Lake Shore rail- 
way crossing Sandusky bay. Here the local fishermen 
gather in the summer days and I have often tried my 
flies against their bait and found the fly beat the bait 
many times over. If two or more flies are rigged on 
the leader the first bass that strikes will tow the other 
flies around and pretty certainly catch for you another 
bass on each. When the water happens to be really 
clear, w^hich unfortunately is seldom, the white bass 
can be seen dashing back and forth like a school of 
mackerel, and one can take as many as he will permit 
himself to. With their silvery scales crossed by a few 
narrow purple lines they are very handsome to the eye, 
and will be found, without the scales, equally satisfac- 
tory on the table. 




189 



Various Small Game 




WESTERN TEXAS. 

OME interests in El Paso caused me to 
spend several weeks in that city for a 
number of successive years around 
eighteen hundred and ninety and I 
always managed to work in some 
shooting in the intervals of business. 
This western part of the State, ex- 
tending eastward to beyond the Pecos 
river, is an arid wilderness, and to eastern eyes seems 
at first view absolutely incapable of supporting life of 
any kind. The valleys are broad plains, dotted with 
greasewood, cactus and stunted yucca, bordered by bare 
and rugged masses of mountain many miles ofif, and 
with a dry stream bed near the center fringed with 
thorny mesquite and tornillo. The sun glares out of a 
cloudless sky, little whirlwinds carry pillars of dust 
over the plain, and the country seems to all deserve 
the name given to a part of the great cattle trail from 
El Paso north, "Jornada del Muerte," the Passage of 
Death. 

Later one learns what wonders have been accom- 
plished by irrigation, and how a constant artificial sup- 
ply of water will make this apparently barren soil yield 
crops which, in quality and quantity, far exceed any 



191 



VARIOUS SMALL GAME 

that the most fertile eastern soil can produce, but still 
one must realize that the available water is very lim- 
ited in quantity, that it can be supplied only to a part 
of the low lands immediately surrounding the streams, 
and that nine-tenths or more of the country must always 
remain desert. At noon everything is blank and bleak 
under the pitiless hard light, but in the evening and 
morning the barren mountains become rich masses of 
color and shadow, at night the stars blaze with a bril- 
liance and splendor never known in the north, and one 
comes to feel that even the desert has its peculiar and 
powerful charm. 

Through the city of El Paso runs the channel of 
the Rio Grande river, a stream with many peculiari- 
ties. Its great length and prominence as the southern 
boundary of the United States for many hundred miles, 
during the days of classes in geography made me think 
of it as comparable in size and importance to the Mis- 
sissippi or Ohio, and it was rather a shock to find it just 
about so wide that an active boy could chuck a stone 
over it, and knee deep at most. It is smaller at El Paso 
than five hundred miles further up — evaporation and 
irrigation drawing on its waters and there being prac- 
tically no inflow after leaving the mountain country, 
and is higher in early summer, when the snows on the 
mountains melt, than at any other time. Of late irriga- 

192 



VARIOUS SMALL GAME 

tion has increased so that all the flow is absorbed and 
to see any water in the channel at El Paso is unusual. 

Mountain sheep are not uncommon in the Sacra- 
mento mountains and other ranges, and I once saw four 
brought in, of which two were rams with very fair 
heads. Black tail deer, bear and wolves are also re- 
ported to be rather plenty; but I could never during 
my stay spend the time necessary for an expedition after 
such big game, and hunted only the small feather and 
fur. The valley quail, with its beautiful plumage of 
blue, cinnamon and slate and its dainty black head tuft, 
abounds along the river bottom and would give most 
excellent sport were it not for its abominable propensity 
for running. It is useless to walk after these birds, for 
they will travel a good deal faster than you can, and 
when a flock is located one must run up at once, trusting 
that the flock will rise and scatter when they settle, after 
which they will lie even more closely than the northern 
quail. When kicked up they fly rapidly and one must 
shoot straight and use fine shot, for a wounded bird is 
practically sure to run, hide and be lost, and only those 
killed are saved. Over the Sierra Blanca east of 
El Paso, where the railway passes at an elevation of 
something above six thousand feet, the rnountain quail 
takes the place of its cousin, being the same in size and 
habits, but clothed in slate-color, brown and white, and 
with a crest like that of a blue jay or cardinal gros- 

193 



VARIOUS SMALL GAME 

beak. The common wild dove feeds in great numbers 
in the big tracts of wild sunflower found all over the 
low lands, gives really very good shooting and large 
bags, and is liked on the table by those who care for 
the flavor of the pigeon, of whom I am not one. If a 
flock is driven out of a sunflower bed the birds will gen- 
erally return one by one and furnish very pretty wing 
shots. 

The Texas cotton tail rabbit is a pygmy, a full 
grown one seldom exceeding nine inches from nose to 
tail. The flesh is very white and delicate, all the 
chicken pies, salads and curries of that country being 
made from rabbit as a matter of course, and being most 
excellent. The little bunnies dodge about among the 
greasewood and mesquite and afford capital snap 
shooting as they dash from one cover to another. The 
big blacktailed jack rabbit is also abundant, but seems 
to be shot only to protect the crops and never eaten. 
To knock over a jack crossing you at full speed one 
must allow at least six feet at fifty yards range, besides 
considering his up and down orbit also, so such shots 
are not so easy as one thinks. I lugged my first jack, ten 
pounds at least, some two miles under a hot sun, only 
to be laughed at when he was shown up. 

Wild geese and ducks are said to be plenty along 
the Rio Grande at certain seasons, but they did not 
come my way. 

194 







i» 



Blacktail Buck — 2 



VARIOUS SMALL GAME 



LAKE ERIE MARSHES. 



Extending from Sandusky Bay westward the 
shores of Lake Erie and its bays are often bordered by 
extensive marshes, and these form a halting place for 
great flocks of migrating waterfowl, which feed on the 
wild celery and stay for some little time before starting 
on again. Most of these marshes are controlled by pri- 
vate shooting clubs which have put up comfortable 
houses and maintain an elaborate plant of men, boats 
and other necessaries for the shooting, as well as a force 
of keepers, wardens and lawyers, to keep off trespassers 
and carry on the continual legal fight which is essential 
to preserve any rights at all to their own property. 

Fall duck shooting always involves a lot of hard 
work and a good deal of exposure, but these clubs have 
eliminated the disagreeables as far as possible, and one 
does his shooting with all the modern improvements 
and with surprising comfort. The boats used are small, 
double ended and flat bottomed, and the sportsman sits 
facing forward near the center, with his guns in racks 
on each side and his box of shells under the seat. The 
punter stands erect in the stern and manipulates a ten- 
foot pole with a paddle blade, in the use of which these 
men are very expert. Narrow and winding channels 
twist through the reeds and rushes, opening out here 
and there into little ponds or sloughs, and in the very 
early dawn each boat will disappear into one of these, 

196 



VARIOUS SMALL GAME 

pole, shove and drag until a satisfactory place is 
reached, and then build a blind, put out decoys and, if 
all goes well, accumulate a fine bag. The punter shoves 
the boat, makes the blind, arranges the decoys, and 
wades through the mud after the game, so the hunter 
generally has only to keep warm over his boat stove 
and shoot straight. A shift of wind, however, may 
change the level of water a foot or two and, should such 
a drop catch him well back in the swamp, he must get 
out the best w^ay he can, perhaps wading for miles 
through fathomless mud and dragging his boat at that. 
It is impossible to realize what hard work such a tramp 
is until you try it. Each leg sinks to or above the knee 
at every step, and it takes all one's strength to pull it 
out, and twenty steps would make it necessary for me 
to stop and puf¥. 

Swans and wild geese generally keep to the open 
water and do not come near the marshes; canvas backs, 
red heads and blue bills also prefer the open, but can 
be decoyed to the points facing the wider water or to 
the scattered reedy islets which are farthest out. Teal, 
mallard, widgeon and others go deeper into the swamp, 
as do coots, gallinules, rail and other waders. On ac- 
count of the long shots, the strength of the birds them- 
selves, and the number of cripples which must be 
stopped or lost, this sport is a great consumer of cart- 
ridges. At the end of a week I usually find that from 

197 



VARIOUS SMALL GAME 

four to five shells have been expended for each duck 
actually bagged, while in quail shooting one bird for 
each two shells was a fairly good average result. 

NORTH CAROLINA MOUNTAINS. 
In 1887 a severe accidental injury made it neces- 
sary for me to give up work for more than a year and 
spend the winter in a comparatively mild climate, and 
by the doctor's orders most of this time was spent 
among the southern mountains around Asheville. This 
country contains bear, deer and wild turkeys, though 
not in great numbers, and the mountaineers, who are 
very reluctant to do real work that pays, will take un- 
heard of trouble after game, so do not leave much large 
game for the visitor. Fortunately these people gener- 
ally have neither the skill nor the guns necessary for 
wing shooting, so the quail do not greatly suffer from 
them and their pursuit was my principal amusement 
during this enforced vacation. Quail are very numer- 
ous in the cultivated fields along the narrow valleys and 
one's first shot is generally in the open ; but they are apt 
to fly at once to the brush and forest covered hillsides, 
after which one has strictly snap shooting at single 
birds, in which for some unknown reason I can do bet- 
ter than in the more open style. Certainly if you catch 
a bird's line through the thickets, toss up the gun and 
shoot without conscious aim, and then find your bird 
stone dead when you peep around the corner, the grati- 

198 




Whitetail Buck — 3 



VARIOUS SMALL GAME 

fication is far more keen than that given by an easier 
shot. 

The open season then extended from October to 
April. In the fall the coveys often contained up to 
thirty birds and occasionally we found packs of nearly 
a hundred, several coveys having evidently joined to- 
gether. The birds were then quite tame and their 
flights short and a daily bag of thirty or forty per gun 
was not unusually large. Later in the season the coveys 
were thinned out, the birds much stronger and more 
wary, — their flights often being half a mile or more — 
and a dozen or fifteen birds to a gun was a good day's 
result. Starting a covey and taking toll from it on one 
day we could be pretty sure to find the survivors in 
about the same place on coming back there the week 
after, a brood evidently sticking pretty closely to the 
neighborhood where it was born. 

All through the south good saddle horses can be 
had for hire at very reasonable rates, so we used to start 
out in the saddle, ride five to ten miles, put up or hitch 
the horses, shoot in that neighborhood and then ride 
home; but we grew lazier with experience and would 
first ride from place to place, dismounting and hunting 
likely fields; then we came to following the dogs on 
horseback, dismounting only when the birds were 
found, and finally tried on several occasions to shoot 
from the horses' backs, this last experiment being indif- 



VARIOUS SMALL GAME 

ferently successful, not that the horses minded it much, 
but one's movements were too much hampered for good 
shooting. The quail were not alarmed by the horses so 
as to rise at first, but would scramble along through the 
grass for some distance, being in plain sight all the 
time, which I have never seen when on foot. 

COAST OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
In the fall the scoters and other sea ducks migrate 
southward, following the general line of the coast and 
crossing from headland to headland, and every year 
some of us would try to get away from college duties at 
Cambridge for a day or two with the "coots," our 
favorite ground being at Manomet point, a bold head- 
land some miles south of Plymouth. The hunters get 
out long before dawn and anchor their dories about a 
hundred yards apart and in a line extending straight 
out to sea for a mile or more, later arrivals often form- 
ing a second and even a third line to the southward, the 
lines being about two hundred yards apart. The flocks 
come down from the north flying close to the surface of 
the water, and seem to often take the boats for rocks and 
come right over them, when you must wait till the birds 
have passed and shoot from behind, for experts say that 
shot will glance from their feathers if it strikes them 
head on. Only too often, however, a flock will take the 
alarm, swing out to sea and circle the further boat well 
out of shot. 



VARIOUS SMALL GAME 

These birds are very hard shelled and need a 
mighty blow to bring them down. I used a number 
eight bore, with five drams of powder and an ounce 
and a half of number one shot, and it was none too pow- 
erful. Plenty of times, especially when a big loon came 
down with the ducks, one would hear the shot strike as 
if he had shot a barn, but the big fellow would give a 
little jerk and go sublimely on, or possibly set his wings 
and strike the water a mile away and far out of reach. 
The ducks are very dark in flesh, strong and fishy and 
of little use on the table to a cultivated taste, but the 
sport is amusing and the natives are glad to use the 
game. 





The Florida Keys 

ROM Miami to Key West and beyond 
extends a shallow sea dotted with 
small and large islets. Toward the 
north and west these are little but 
mud, mangroves and mosquitoes, but 
toward the east and south they often 
show white beaches of coral sand and 
sometimes a little soil capable of culti- 
vation, while cocoanut palms are not infrequent. The 
belt of isles is from ten to forty miles in width, and 
around the inner ones stretch wide sounds of shallow 
water and broad flats of sand or mud barely covered by 
the tide. Between the outer keys are frequent channels 
called creeks, through which the tide ebbs and flows, 
and beyond the outer line on the east coast is a belt of 
shoal water from three to five miles wide extending to 
the Florida Reef, from which the bottom plunges 
downward rapidly to the channel of the great Gulf 
Stream. On the west coast the water is shoal all 
through the Bay of Florida, deepening gradually to- 
ward the Gulf of Mexico. The whole region naturally 
divides itself into two districts, the "east coast" and 
"west coast," as they are commonly distinguished, the 
territory between the keys being rather similar to and 
generally included with the latter. These two districts 



203 



THE FLORIDA KEYS 

differ considerably in the character of their waters and 
the inhabitants thereof, the east coast being washed by 
water of crystal clearness, peopled by the Spanish 
mackerel, kingfish, barracuda, amberjack, and others 
that more rarely appear on the western shore, while the 
waters of the west coast are more cloudy, and inhabited 
by the great rays, the sawfish, the sheepshead and the 
drums, gray and red. The tarpon frequents both coasts, 
but appears earlier and is, I think, more numerous on 
the west side, while sharks are common everywhere. 

The eastern fish and fishing have been most fully 
and carefully described by Mr. W. H. Gregg in his ad- 
mirable work, "When, Where and How to Catch Fish 
en the East Coast of Florida," and Mr. Chas. F. 
Holder, in his fascinating volume, "The Big Game 
Fishes of the United States," has written most exhaust- 
ively and lovingly of the principal tenants of both dis- 
tricts. Anyone contemplating a fishing trip to Florida 
will find these two books give abundant information as 
well as the keenest pleasure. My own experience is 
limited to a little fishing near Miami a year or two ago, 
and a month's cruise of very recent date; in which last 
I saw and fished most of the country, but at an unfavor- 
able season and w^ith unusually bad weather. Still we 
succeeded in taking forty species in all, including most 
of the principal fishes of both coasts, with the unfortu- 
nate exception of the tarpon, for which we were far 

204 




A Grouper 



THE FLORIDA KEYS 

too early, having started our cruise in the middle of 
January and ended it half way through the following 
month. 

To get the best results the northern fisherman 
might leave Miami about the middle of March, 
spend two weeks on the east coast, and reach Marco or 
Punta Rassa about April i, by which time he ought 
to find tarpon. Doing this he is not likely to meet 
with many "northers," which put an end to all 
fishing while they blow, and still will be early enough 
to escape any great heat and the worst of the flies, which 
last are present in places favorable for them at all sea- 
sons, but are not very bad until spring, when the west 
coast is said to be almost intolerable, and even the more 
favored east is not free from the scourge. 

In part from my own limited experience, but 
mainly from the evidence of my guides, I think there is 
really nothing especially desirable in the way of rod- 
fishing in the west except for the tarpon ; but, should the 
fisherman succumb to the attractions of the chase with 
the spear, as he is likely to do after the first trial, this 
district is the better for it. 

In the excessively clear waters of the east, fish have 
every opportunity to see the angler and his line, and 
they do not fail to make the most of them. As a conse- 
quence nearly all are extremely shy and madden one 
by the calmest indifference to the most seductive baits. 

206 



THE FLORIDA KEYS 

To obtain success one must get his bait to the fish 
while himself at a considerable distance, and this 
must be done either by trolling or by making a long 
cast or letting the sinker run down with the tide, and 
the bait lie on the bottom until a fish strikes. Of course 
a running sinker must be used, so that the lightest nibble 
can be felt. If these fish were surface feeders, one 
could have ideal sport with the fly, and I understand 
that this has been successfully tried by one or two 
anglers when fishing in shallow waters. There seem to 
be few large flies in the country, and the fish live on 
minnows or crustaceans, so the fly is not offered to them 
as a fly, but as a strange, moving, and therefore living, 
object, which is presented and snatched away until a 
rush is made at it and the unwise investigator is hooked 
in consequence. Mr. Dimmock, whom I met at Marco, 
and who has done w^onders with the camera and with 
the spear, tells me that he has had excellent sport with 
channel bass and small tarpon by using the fly in this 
manner. 

In the channels between the keys fishing is greatly 
dependent on the state of the tide, as fish seem to travel 
back and forth with the currents while feeding, and 
when the tide is running strongly it is very difficult to 
feel the delicate nibble, which is usually all that is 
given. Slack water and the hour or so preceding and 
following it is the favorable period, and if fish are not 

207 



THE FLORIDA KEYS 

taken then you had better try some other place. On the 
outer reef this is not so much the case, and one can often 
find success at any stage of the tide. Florida fish are, 
however, very freaky and uncertain, like most other 
fish, and often choose their time for biting and for re- 
fusing to do so without apparent reason; but patience 
and diligence will bring success in the South as in the 
North. 

As most of these fish are bottom feeders, a pretty 
heavy sinker is usually necessary for still-fishing, and 
this dead weight is of course a nuisance in fishing and 
a great hindrance and disadvantage in playing a fish 
when hooked. In the channels and shoal water one can 
generally use moderately light tackle, though it is al- 
ways possible that you may hook something large 
enough to endanger your rig. On the reef to use light 
tackle is to court disaster, as you are practically certain 
to strike a monster that even the heaviest rig will barely 
save. At Alligator Reef my companion had his line 
broken twice, and twice had the full two hundred yards 
carried away by some irresistible power. Having 
never before used a tarpon rod or a twenty-one thread 
line, I grew to think them equal to any strain that could 
be exerted, so twice had the line broken at the leader 
knot through holding big amberjacks too tight, and, 
having hooked two big sharks while trolling for king- 

208 




Hy?nus Cubens: 



THE FLORIDA KEYS 

fish, succeeded in both cases in breaking the line with- 
out losing much, more by good luck than by any skill. 

Some months ago Mr. L. F. Brown asked me to 
join in a discussion as to whether fresh or salt water 
fish were the stronger. Having then had but little salt 
water experience, I did not feel qualified to express an 
opinion. Now, however, my conviction is fixed beyond 
shaking that the salt water fish, weight for weight, is 
greatly the more powerful. No one who has seen the 
rushes and leaps of a barracuda, felt the mighty surges 
of an amberjack or the wild dashes of a kingfish, can 
for a moment doubt that to any of these the heaviest 
salmon tackle would be as a thread of gossamer. Using 
a twenty-four-ounce six-foot tarpon rod and a multi- 
plier holding two hundred yards of twenty-one thread 
line (tested to a dead pull of forty-two pounds), and 
equipped with a pad brake, I have repeatedly had more 
than a hundred yards torn from the reel, in spite of the 
greatest pressure that my thumb on the brake and my 
gloved left hand clasped around line and rod, could 
possibly exert, by fish that proved when gaffed to weigh 
only twenty pounds or thereabout. After playing and 
landing my largest amberfish — four feet long and 
weighing forty-five pounds — my left arm at the elbow 
ached very sharply, and I actually had to rest for ten 
minutes before daring to risk it in another such strug- 
gle. Our fishing was done from a big launch and was 

210 



THE FLORIDA KEYS 

difficult in consequence; it would have been much eas- 
ier if done from small boats which the fish could tow. 

I had with me a light steel bait rod which had 
handled very many large black bass and lake trout in 
the Temagami country, and used this rod whenever it 
was reasonably safe to do so, taking on it numerous 
sheepsheads, channel bass, bluefish, Spanish mackerel, 
groupers, jacks, runners and other fish, weighing from 
one to five pounds. The sheepshead and channel bass 
were certainly less vigorous and persistent in play than 
our brave small mouth black bass, but the bluefish, 
mackerel, and especially the runners and jacks, were 
very much stronger, pulling much harder and fighting 
more fiercely and longer than any bass of equal weight 
that has had a discussion with me. 

The play of the great pelagic fishes caught on or 
outside the reef is interestingly different. The barra- 
cuda, sabre-toothed and pike-like, makes fierce and 
long side runs, and often leaps repeatedly clear from 
the water; the kingfish, splendid in blue and silver and 
iridescent with pink and purple, takes the bait with a 
rush that often carries him ten feet clear of the waves, 
the squid in his jaws, and then dashes wildly from side 
to side, away, down, up and everywhere. The amber- 
jack does not leap, but marches away with a force that 
nothing seems able to check, utterly refuses to yield to 
pressure, never seems to tire, and is of all fish I have 



THE FLORIDA KEYS 

met, the one that fights longest and steadiest, with a 
fund of reserve power that it seems impossible to ex- 
haust. The huge grouper, battleship of fishes, resists 
heavily and immovably, and is only too apt to get into 
a rock hole and leave you trying to lift the State of 
Florida. 

Since returning, many have asked me, "Will not 
your experience with these great and powerful fish 
make your beloved trout seem small and uninterest- 
ing?" To which I answer, "A thousand times no! It 
has been wonderful fishing, a very interesting experi- 
ence, and one to be remembered with great pleasure, 
but I don't care much to repeat it. The tackle is too 
heavy, the work too hard, and the fish too many and too 
big. Far preferable to any of these splendid fish is 
fontinalis, with his personal beauty, wiliness and wari- 
ness, lovely surroundings, and the delicate tackle which 
must be used to ensnare him. As gossamer gut is to 
piano wire, as the finest silk line is to heavy linen, as a 
number twelve hook is to a ten-naught, as a tiny artifi- 
cial fly is to a five-inch block tin squid, so is the pursuit 
of fontinalis a finer, more delicate and more attractive 
sport than any that Florida has shown me. The south- 
ern fish are magnificent, superb, in all ways admirable; 
but the heavy tackle which must be used in taking them 
robs the sport of much of its charm. If Florida ever 
sees me again, it will be that I may once more use the 
spear, not the rod." 



Log Of The Mystery 




ASOLENE cabin launch "Mystery," 
forty-two feet long, eleven feet beam, 
twenty-horsepower gasolene engine, 
sloop rigged, chartered by Trask and 
Newberry, of Cleveland, Ohio, for a 
month's cruise from Miami to Punta 
Rassa, via the Keys of Florida. 

Charles R. Meloy, owner, captain 
and cook, thirty-five years old, born in New Haven, 
Conn., tall and strong, has been prize-fighter, railroad 
man, and now owns the "Mystery" and charters her to 
fishermen. 

Captain John R. Roberts, pilot, forty years old, 
born in Wisconsin, a gentleman by birth and training, 
handsome, agreeable, with property enough to support 
him comfortably. Has been in the United States Vol- 
unteer Army in the Philippines and got a captain's 
commission there at close of war. Traveled over most 
of the world, now makes his home in Miami and fishes, 
shoots and guides as part business and part amusement. 
Walter Jenkins, assistant engineer, deck hand, gen- 
eral utility, "cracker" by birth and education. Sixteen 
years old, tall and thin, smokes cigarettes all the time. 
A well-intentioned boy, but apt to forget things and be 
picturesquely cursed by the captain in consequence. 

213 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

Trask, general agent of a big insurance company, 
short, stout and jolly. 

Newberry, lawyer and manufacturer, tall, thin, 
and the keeper of this log. 

Monday, January i6.— Sailed from Miami one 
P. M. High north wind; bright sun; trolled down Bis- 
cayne Bay without results. Went aground at mouth 
Caesar's Creek, twenty-four miles south from Miami, 
about five P. M., on a falling tide. Stuck there all 
night. 

Tuesday, January 17. — Cold north wind; rainy, 
got off ground about six o'clock with great difficulty; 
anchored in Caesar's Creek for breakfast; went after 
crawfish for bait and the table in a branch creek; got a 
lot of them with the spear, weighing up to five pounds 
each. Very good sport and food, tasting like lobster. 
Found a school of silver moonfish up the creek, and 
secured seven by casting the spear; the most beautiful 
fish I have ever seen. One twelve inches long and ten 
inches across, was three-quarters of an inch thick, and 
all shining like mother of pearl and silver. Caught a 
few grunts in channel late in the afternoon — very good 
on table. 

Wednesday, January 18. — Sunny; northeast wind. 
Caught a parrot fish and a grunt from the anchorage. 
Moved up creek again. Speared crawfish and moon- 
fish. Tied up to mangroves, where water was about 

214 







■V. 






LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

twelve feet deep and perfectly clear. Many blue and 
yellow angelfish and snappers visible, but they would 
not bite. A large school of salt water chub in a cave 
under the bank. Caught a dozen of them about two 
pounds each with light rod, small hook and a very small 
bait; very active and strong fish, and interesting fish- 
ing, as one had to strike when the fish darted at the bait, 
which would be taken off before the bite could be felt. 

Thursday, January 19. — Warmer; showers; wind 
east. Down channel and outside keys to Angelfish 
Creek. Caught a few grunts. After lunch ran up 
through creek and down inside keys to Steamboat 
Creek. Fished there for snapper; caught one and two 
little sand perch. At five ran down creek and anchored 
outside. Fished for snapper at mouth of creek. Mos- 
quitoes fearful. Trask caught three snappers, small, 
and then hooked a four-foot stingray, which towed him 
round awhile and was led out into the bay. We got 
gaff and grains; Roberts grained him, the hook giving 
way then. I gaffed him, and we both towed him to the 
boat. Captain grained him again. Walter broke the 
barbed lance in his tail with an oar, and we hoisted him 
on deck. Estimated weight eighty pounds, dark olive 
back, white below. Slept in bay that night; no flies; 
fair night. 

Friday, January 20. — Wind, west, light; bright 
and warm. Back to Angelfish Creek. Down outside to 

216 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

Indian Key, about thirty miles south of Angelfish. 
Rigged tarpon rods and wire leaders for expected big 
barracuda. Trolled down, some strikes from mack- 
erel; no fish. Anchored one-quarter mile north of In- 
dian Key. Caught abundance of runners (or hard 
tail), snappers, grunts, a yellow tail and fifteen or 
twenty of the curious "half-beak" — a silvery fish from 
ten inches to fifteen inches long, about one inch deep, 
tail with lower blade the longer, and a long protrusion 
of the lower jaw making a three-inch or four-inch 
beak, the upper jaw short. These swim in schools near 
the surface, and take very gently a small hook with 
piece of crawfish about half an inch square. Very 
lively, but too small to give sport. A four-foot shark 
made a dash at one of my hooked fish, and nearly got 
him. 

Saturday, January 21. — North wind; fresh; cool. 
Landed on Indian Key, shot two doves and could not 
find them. Tried to catch groupers in rock holes along 
shore. Saw some of five to eight pounds, but couldn't 
get them to bite. Caught some small porgies and 
grunts ofif the cay. Moved to our last night's anchor- 
age. No fish but a school of half-beaks. Caught eight 
with one bait. Later got several good mutton fish, run- 
ners, etc. Fish bit for last part of ebb tide only. I fell 
backward from the after deck into the cockpit, camp- 

217 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

Stool and all. Ought to have broken my neck, but got 
off with a scare and a few strains. 

Sunday, January 22. — Wind, north, ligh't, falling 
to almost nothing; warm and pleasant. Up at five- 
thirty; breakfast. To Alligator Reef Light, three miles 
southeast. Trolled around light with tarpon rod, reel 
and line, piano wire leaders, ten-naught hooks and six- 
inch bait, pork rind or fish. Caught twenty-one barra- 
cuda, from ten to thirty pounds, five amberfish from 
twenty-five to sixty pounds, five groupers from ten to 
seventy-five pounds, two Spanish mackerel eight pounds 
each. Lost a good many fish and several hooks and lead- 
ers. Perfectly wonderful sport. Very gamy and strong 
fish, especially the amberjack, which, in sustained 
power, excels every fish I have known, weight for 
weight. Is first cousin to the California "yellow-tail." 
The work very hard, and after each big fish was gaflfed, 
one wanted to sit down and gasp, and rub his aching 
muscles. I was astonished at the strength of the tackle, 
and got to think it would hold anything, so lost two big 
amberjacks by holding them too tight and breaking my 
line at the leader knot. A hammerhead shark, about ten 
feet long, swam close around the sloop while we were 
anchored for lunch. Tried in vain to shoot him; fished 
for him with shark hook but he wouldn't bite. 

Our total catch was thirty-three fish, and I esti- 
mated total weight over seven hundred pounds. Trask 

218 




A Shark — free 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

had two reels fail him and broke his line twice, and so 
took my spare line and reel to go on with. His click 
slipped off, the reel overran and snarled the line, and 
the next rush broke it. Largest grouper was about four 
feet long, seventy-five pounds; largest amberjack, four 
and two-thirds feet, sixty pounds; largest barracuda, 
four and one-half feet, thirty pounds. The barracuda 
plays like a salmon, making long side runs and often 
leaping repeatedly. One of my large fish went clear 
out five times. The amberfish play deeper and do not 
leap, but are much stronger weight for weight and fight 
longer. The groupers surge heavily, play deep and get 
into a hole if they can. Took fish to Indian Key, pho- 
tographed them, and gave to a "Conch," as the natives 
of the keys are called, all but four, so none were wasted. 
Find inside of sole leather brake pad deeply hollowed 
by friction against the coil of line on the reel. Had a 
plunge off the sloop. Very fine. 

Monday, January 23. — Wind, northeast, light; 
fair. After breakfast started for Bahia Honda, outside 
the keys, a run of forty miles. Passed fleet of spongers 
about nine A. M., and of mackerel seiners, each 
schooner w^ith a big seine boat in tow and a lookout on 
the jibboom end, about eleven. Toward noon saw sev- 
eral mackerel jump, but they would not strike the 
squids. About two-thirty two struck at the same mo- 
ment, and were landed, four and one-half pounds each. 

220 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

About three-thirty entered Bahia Honda harbor, pass- 
ing near a small rocky islet with a large flock of peli- 
cans on it. Shot at them muchly with small rifles with 
no results. Landed on Bahia Honda cay. Low coral 
reef, with rank grass and bushes on the higher part, and 
a few cocoanut palms in the distance. Caught a lot of 
small crabs for bait from under stones, and I speared a 
nurse shark about fifteen inches long. Back on boat, 
and caught a lot of small porgies and grunts before 
sundown. Going back to boat we saw a large stingray, 
speckled this time; but he got away too quick for me to 
spear him. They move through the water by motion 
of their wide flanges, which is singularly like the flight 
of a bird. Six P. M., wind north, light; quite warm. 
These southern keys have white beaches, and are in- 
clined to be rocky and dry, quite different from the 
mud and mangrove cays for the first fifty miles south 
of Miami. Trask snores regularly every night, but not 
violently, and it don't seem to bother me any. He is 
very cheerful and jolly and a very pleasant companion. 
Tuesday, January 24. — Anchored in channel be- 
fore breakfast; caught large grunts and porgies of 
about two pounds, and one pork fish, silver with yellow 
and black stripes. Started for Key West about eight 
o'clock. One valve stem of engine broke about ten 
o'clock; drifted for two hours and repaired it. Trolled 
with big rods over some reefs for about, an hour after 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

lunch. 1 caught a fifteen-pound grouper, and had one 
more strike. Trask got one strike, but no fish. Started 
for Key West two-fifteen P. M., about eighteen miles 
away. Timed the boat for an hour this morning. She 
made seven and one-half miles towing her rowboat be- 
hind, and with two trolling lines out. A perfect day; 
north wind early in day, and quite brisk. Now, two- 
thirty P. M., soft S.W. wind; very warm and perfectly 
clear; water, turquoise, with purple patches of rocky 
shoal; wind, light, northerly, increasing. 

Wednesday, January 25. — Wind, northerly fresh; 
fair weather. Took some photographs, bought sup- 
plies, etc. Dropped my glasses into the harbor while 
trying to photograph a two hundred-pound jewfish tied 
to dock. A genial colored gentleman fished them out and 
seemed grateful for a quarter. Wind rose rapidly, by 
noon blowing a norther. Shifted boat to south of 
steamer pier; cold and cloudy; dined at hotel; a very 
bad dinner. Cold night; wind high. 

Thursday, January 26. — Norther still blowing 
very cold. Sun out about ten; warmer. Think 
we are stuck here for a day or two. Storm all day, very 
cold, extra blankets bought and slept in underclothes 
and stockings. 

Friday, January 27. — Fair; cold north wind. 
Many fish picked up by boys, so numbed with cold as 
to be helpless. Wind falling and somewhat warmer. 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

Drove with Trask to Martello Towers, old forts east of 
town, and took some photographs. We had been told 
this could not be done without a permit, so drove to the 
barracks, and were told that the commanding officer 
was at Fort Taylor. Drove to the fort,' passing through 
a gate where a sentry was stationed, who said nothing 
to us. After some inquiry found a group of officers at 
one of the batteries, prominent among whom was a 
stout, red-faced, grizzled personage. I lifted my hat, 
and he said, "Well, sir." I said, "We are told that per- 
mission to inspect the Martello Towers is necessary, and 
beg leave to ask to do so." He thundered, "How the 
devil did you get in here?" and, without waiting for a 
reply, began to abuse our driver for bringing citizens 
into the fort and threatened him with the guard house; 
ordered the officer of the day to arrest the sentry at the 
gate and have him tried by court martial. Said to me 
most gruffly, "Am sorry I can give you no permission 
to see any of the fortifications," and stalked away. The 
whole performance was so absurd that it struck me as 
funny, and I did not begin to realize that our dignity 
as American citizens had been ofifended until about 
next day. The army is amusing when it gets on its hind 
legs and prances, and this particular individual may 
have been a very good officer, but seems to have lacked 
training as a gentleman. We found the- towers prac- 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

tically ruinous, and nobody objected to our visit to 
them. 

The island where not cleared is a desolate wilder- 
ness, sand and rock covered by scrubby jungle. Got 
some more supplies and hope to start in morning for 
the west coast. This storm appears to have been gen- 
eral all over the country, with zero or below in north- 
ern cities and freezing or below far down into Florida, 
and has doubtless done great damage. Saw a jewfish 
on dock, about six feet long and very thick and heavy, 
would weigh at least three hundred pounds, brown, 
mottled with lighter shade and very ugly. Large tur- 
tle crawls on dock next us. Full of green turtles. Some 
very large ones. Toward night wind much lighter, and 
temperature much milder. Night cold, but not nearly 
so bad as the last one. 

Saturday, January 28.— Cloudy; light northeast 
wind. Started at nine-thirty. On the way passed a 
small shark and a hawksbill turtle, circled to try and 
spear them, but they both got out of the way. Reached 
Bahia Honda three-thirty. Landed on Pelican Key, 
got two shots at flock of small beach birds with shot- 
gun. Killed several, but only got two, others washed 
away. Fired four shots at pelican on the water, about 
three hundred yards, with .22 rifle; first shot short; 
second and third nearer; but still short. Fourth caught 
him through the neck and killed him instantly. Picked 

224 




A Shark — Hooked 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

him up with launch, full-grown female, very handsome 
plumage, spread of wings seven feet. Much larger 
bird than I supposed. Anchored inside channel. Quiet 
night. 

Sunday, January 29. — Cloudy; heavy black bank 
to the east. Started for Cape Sable nine A. M. Skinned 
the pelican; beastly job. Partly cloudy; light north 
wind. Are running up inside keys, and shall strike 
across in an hour or so and get out of sight of land. 
Bay of Florida. Water shallow, today muddy from 
long storm, so pale turquoise. Cape Sable about three 
P. M. Up along shore to Sawfish Hole. Very shoal 
water. Anchored off postoffice of Flamingo, near some 
small keys. Few drops of rain in evening. Quite com- 
fortable temperature. The pelican skin kept me busy 
for four days, hanging it up to the sun to dry, covering 
it with canvas when it rained and putting it away at 
night. It got wetter and worse smelling every day, and 
I finally gave it up as a bad job and threw it overboard. 

Monday, January 30.— Fair, light east wind, com- 
fortably warm. Up at sunrise. Went to keys with 
shotgun and rod. Shot a great white heron and a qua 
bird, or night heron. Caught a sea trout three pounds. 
Roberts speared a drum of about same size. Picked 
up a chilled burrfish. Yellow ground, fine black stripes 
in pattern, emerald eyes, yellow border, spined pro- 
fusely on back and head to tail; eight inches long. Af- 

226 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

ternoon, speared a red drum, shot a Florida cormorant 
and young white ibis, called ''curlew" here. Fired 
many shots. Shot (No. 8), too small. Warmest night 
yet. 

Tuesday, January 31. — Fair, light east wind; 
warm. Fished for drum around keys, no bites. Shot at 
a red drum and missed him. Speared a gray drum, 
twenty pounds, which croaked repeatedly when in the 
boat. Roberts picked up a fifty-pound tarpon, dead, 
evidently killed by cold ; no mark on him. After lunch 
started for Shark river on west coast. East winds be- 
came high about noon. Still quite warm. We were 
disappointed at not seeing a sawfish, for which this last 
spot is noted. Had cormorant and curlew stewed for 
dinner. Both horrid. Tender, but with a dead and 
gone aftertaste that was abominable. The red drum 
proved an excellent table fish. About two-thirty ran 
hard aground on bank a mile from shore. Tide went 
out and boat lay over twenty degrees or more. Engine 
broke down just after we struck. Tinkered it, tide 
came in and we got ofif about seven-thirty and anchored 
in channel. Big lot of porpoises pufiing and jumping 
around us. Wind fallen; warmer. 

Wednesday, February i. — Fair; wind east, fresh. 
Fished off boat. Trask caught four sand perch; I 
didn't get a bite. Ran along coast past the triple capes 
called "Sable," toward Shark river. Reached same 

227 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

about noon. After lunch went up river in boats. 
Fished, but caught nothing. Shot two Louisiana her- 
ons and a young one of the "little blue heron." This 
last was pure white, the ends of the primaries very 
slightly marked with bluish. In about two years the 
bird becomes deep blue all over. Trask shot an adult. 
Took skin of back and wings of my Louisianas. Two 
porpoises in river; Trask shot at them with his big 
rifle and missed; Walter chased them with grains, but 
couldn't reach 'em. Mosquitoes numerous here. Shall 
pull out for Marco and Pavilion Key or Punta Rassa 
in morning. 

Thursday, February 2. — Partly cloudy; warm; 
wind very light, southwest. Left Shark river before 
breakfast. Up coast; stopped Pavilion Key, twenty 
miles north, for clams. Tide too high. Bay full of big 
drum fish, showing fins above surface. Roberts speared 
three, twenty, ten and eight pounds. I shot at two, but 
did not fetch them. Kept on north. Saw great flocks 
of pelicans on sand bars and reefs, touched on shoals off 
Cape Romano, but did not stick. Reached Marco 
channel about five P. M. Stuck on bar outside. Got 
ofif and made entrance all right. Grounded again in 
river, pulled of¥ and dropped anchor ofif Marco P. O. 
Half a dozen houses and good-sized hotel and store. 
Mailed letters, and were given New York papers to 
January 30, and invited to supper, but declined; clothes 

228 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

not good enough for ladies' society. Shot at flock of 
ducks, but got none. Shall get a few supplies and may 
Slay here for a day if fishing and shooting good. Mailed 
letters. No mosquitoes. Good night. 

Friday, February 3. — Fog at sunrise. Light show- 
ers once or twice during morning. Caught fiddlers on 
point; great droves of them there. Went up creek and 
caught three red drum (channel bass) about two 
pounds each. Struck a great sheepshead hole. Caught 
a dozen, from three pounds to one, and stopped because 
I wouldn't catch more. They are very light biters, and 
great bait stealers. Trask caught half a dozen and 
stopped. We gave all we could not use to hotel. Got 
some fruit, beans, etc. Roberts grained a whip ray, 
about two feet across. Started for Punta Rassa, noon. 
Pelicans and porpoises all the way. Many dead fish 
floating — mostly catfish. Near Sanibel passed a log- 
gerhead turtle close by, six feet long. Trask wanted to 
shoot him and Roberts to grain him, and the turtle 
woke up and dived while they were discussing. Saw a 
great devil fish jumping near the light. He went clear 
out six or seven times. Was eight feet long at least, and 
much wider than that. Anchored at Punta Rassa at 
sundown. Got letters and telegrams at hotel. The 
threatened northwest storm did not materialize. Starry 
night. 

Saturday, February 4. — Partly cloudy; east wind. 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

light; cool, but pleasant. After breakfast sailed to Fort 
Myers for supplies. Sixteen miles up Caloosa river. 
Shot at many ducks, bluebills; bagged one, and had my 
glasses kicked off into the river. Got supplies, waited 
until morning for ice. Nothing doing. Caught two 
snappers ofif dock at Punta Rassa, small. Bluebill 
ducks in Myers harbor amazingly tame. Shooting is 
prohibited there, and the ducks know it. They are 
wild as usual a mile away. 

Sunday, February 5. — Foggy; easterly wind; fair- 
ly warm. Ice late in coming. Left order to send it to 
Punta Rassa and sailed nine A. M. Stopped to fish for 
trout. Caught none. Shot two bluebill ducks, and 
picked a bushel of oysters ofif bar — excellent. Caught 
a five-pound sheepshead oflf dock at Punta Rassa, and 
Trask caught a six-pounder. Great sport for our light 
rods. 

Monday, February 6. — Fair; light southwest 
wind; warm. Ice came nine A. M. Sailed to Sanibel 
Light, nine-thirty. Picked up many and large variety 
of shells on beach, and caught four or five sheepshead, 
four pounds each, oflf dock. Sailed for Marco, ten-fif- 
teen A. M. On beach at Sanibel many dead fish, killed 
by the late freeze. Men at Punta Rassa say that about 
all fish caught in shallow water were killed. Three 
dead sharks and a dead porpoise on bar. A beautiful 
run to Marco; light southeast wind. Long swell from 

230 




A Shark — Landed 



\ 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

gulf. Got to Marco at four P. M. Took in gasolene 
and caught fiddlers. 

Tuesday, February 7. — Fair; light southeast 
wind; warm; a perfect morning. Got up before sun- 
rise, dressed and rowed to shore for fiddler crabs, 
caught about four quarts in a few minutes. They cov- 
ered the ground so as to make large brown patches on 
the edge of the mud flats, but scattered in a very lively 
way when approached. It was a muddy job, but rather 
good fun. Started at seven-thirty, following a launch 
that was to make the run through Big Marco river, a 
tidal channel through a multitude of islets, hard to dis- 
tinguish and follow and to find good water, for most 
of it is quite shallow and the channel swerves perplex- 
ingly from side to side. We scraped several times, it 
being dead low tide, but got through all right in about 
two hours. Saw many herons, ibis and ducks, and a very 
few of the rare roseate spoon-bill, called ''pink curlew" 
here. A big bald eagle sat on a mangrove just as we 
came out in the open. The mangroves grow down to 
low water mark, their trunks being raised to high tide 
level on a cluster of spider-like roots. Branches and 
pendant roots hang to the water and are often encrusted 
with oysters, always small and not eaten where the big- 
ger and better kind, which are always water-covered, 
can be had. Reached Pavilion Key about noon. I 
fished for drum with no results; could hear their croak 

232 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

all around us, but they would not bite. Grained a big 
fish in five feet of water. He raced around with the 
pole for two or three minutes before I got hold of it; 
then surged mightily against my pull, and finally 
worked loose and got oflf. Must have been a forty- 
pounder, probably a big drum. Grained a big stingray 
and lost him after ten minutes. Trask wxnt out with 
Roberts, who grained four sharks and lost them all. 
Was pulled overboard by one of them. In the evening 
went wading for clams by lantern light on the big flats, 
left bare, or nearly so, by the tide. A very weird and 
queer experience. Got a few clams only. 

Wednesday, February 8. — Fair; warm; light east- 
erly breeze. Whole crew went after clams after break- 
fast, and kept us waiting three hours, which might have 
been much better employed in running south. I 
tramped the beach with shotgun, missed a big hawk, or 
rather failed to stop him, and saw nothing else. Tide 
very low, and a striking difference in the appearance 
of the island. Got under way about nine-thirty for 
Cape Sable, and beyond if we can get there. 

Pleasant run to Sandy Cay. Arrived four-thirty 
P. M. Anchored one-quarter of a mile south. On 
shore with gun. No game. Saw thirty or more great 
white and blue herons perched on one tree, and two 
bald eagles on a dead stub. Shore swarming with large 
horseshoe crabs, in clusters of from three to twelve. 

23Z 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

Trask caught one catfish ofif yacht and stopped fishing. 
Quiet night; warm. Slept without a blanket for the 
first time. 

Thursday, February 9. — One month from Cleve- 
land; twenty-four days from Miami. Fair, bright and 
very warm; wind southeast, light. Started at eight 
A. M. for Indian Key. Run is among sand banks, not 
reaching the surface, the sea being entirely open, ex- 
cept for some small cays to the north, and the deepest 
water being seven feet to eight feet only. Passed fleet 
of spongers. Went through a narrow channel between 
sand banks, and anchored of¥ Lignum Vitae Cay at two 
P. M. Hunted crawfish in the rock holes along shore, 
speared one hundred and nineteen, mostly big ones, and 
salted them down. Anchored off Indian Cay about 
four P. M. Caught a lot of runners and jacks, nothing 
else; very strong fighters, but worthless on the table. 
Threw them all back. One pound to two. Very hot 
night. Slept without covering and with windows open. 
All very restless. 

Friday, February 10. — ^Wind S. E., light; very 
warm. Fished off boat before breakfast. Caught only 
runners. Saved a few for barracuda bait. To Alliga- 
tor reef after breakfast. I caught three barracuda, ten, 
fifteen, eighteen pounds, and three Spanish mackerel, 
seven, seven, four pounds. Trask caught two barra- 
cuda, two groupers, one mackerel, about the same size, 

234 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

and a two-pound parrot fish, green and yellow. I fished 
under the light for snappers and hooked a good one, 
who instantly ran under one of the iron braces and 
broke my line. An impossible place. Saw a lot of 
them outside, but they wouldn't look at a hook. Sharks 
began to appear, so we rigged a shark line, baited with 
a chunk of barracuda, hooked and lost a six-footer, and 
caught a ten-footer, whom Trask quieted with his big 
rifle. Three remoras were attached to it, each about 
two feet six inches long. We speared them. Roberts 
dived for a lot of sea fans and a starfish — he is a great 
swimmer and diver. He hit a gray snapper with the 
spear, but it failed to hold. Back to Indian Cay about 
four P. M. I fished today with my medium-weight 
rod and a No. 12 line, until a big barracuda made a 
tremendous rush, and my reel overran and snarled the 
line. He kept quiet just then, and by backing the yacht 
I managed to reel in a lot of line and save him. In his 
last rush he again snarled the line, but was too far gone 
to break it. This trouble was caused by the pad brake 
on this reel not being clamped tightly enough to the 
bar, so that it fell back every time I reeled in and re- 
quired some time to get into service when the fish made 
a rush. Very hot all day. The big fish made us work 
very hard, so we suffered. Fishing today was much 
inferior to that of our former day at the same place, 
which was evidently exceptionally favorable; we saw 

235 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

great numbers of fish, but they were not inclined to bite. 
Half a dozen barracuda often followed our baits for a 
long distance before one could summon up pluck 
enough to strike. Clouds banked up in the north this 
afternoon, which preceded a sharp blow from the north 
and northeast, rising about seven P. M., and increasing 
to quite a gale. Captain rowed out and set the second 
anchor, and we are riding easily, being protected from 
any sea by the shoal water on a bank just north of us, 
bare at low tide. It is much cooler, which is a pleasant 
change. We fished in channel here after returning 
from light and caught only hard-tail runners, all of 
which we threw back. High wind and heavy rain in 
showers, continued all night. 

Saturday, February ii. — High wind, due east, 
working toward the south during the day. Fair; partly 
cloudy. Yacht lay at anchor in channel all day. Water 
grew very cloudy. I tried to fish, but the boat kept 
swinging about sixty degrees, going nearly across the 
channel with each swing, so I gave it up after awhile. 
Nothing doing all day. 

Sunday, February 12. — Cloudy; brisk S. E. wind; 
too high for us outside. Shall try the inside course 
north. Had a rough sea for a mile, getting round out- 
side to the channel. Ran back of Lignum Vitae Key 
through narrow channels of blue water winding 
through broad flats, brown and yellow, with here and 

236 




G 



c^ 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

there a young mangrove stem, and saw flocks of white 
herons, ibis and other waders. Came out into a sound 
several miles wide, beyond which we got through a 
crooked pass in a sand bank, just wide enough for the 
boat, dragging her skeg through the mud to do it. 
Crossed another sound several miles wide but, on send- 
ing out a small boat and sounding, found we could not 
cross the bar beyond it. Ran several miles north for 
another crossing but, owing to the wind and sea having 
made the water muddy, missed the channel and got 
hard aground. Couldn't get ofif with the engine or 
poles, so ran an anchor out, put the small boat on the 
fore deck and filled it with water (to bring the bow 
down and the stern up). The captain and Roberts got 
overboard and hoisted; Walter worked the engine; 
Trask and I hauled on the anchor cable, and we got off. 
Roberts found channel, and we got through into an- 
other big sound. Ran seven or eight miles through 
this, passing three flamingoes feeding on a bar, brilliant- 
ly scarlet against the green water. There was quite a 
sea running, which once bumped us very hard on a high 
place and started a small leak astern, but did no serious 
damage. Got into Boggy creek all right, dragging a 
little, but grounded hard at the other end, and had 
quite a time getting off, repeating our earlier perform- 
ances in all details. Finally did so, ran through the 
new sound to the mouth of Jewfish creek and anchored 

238 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

outside of it. All hands were pretty tired, and we 
served out drinks from our only bottle of whiskey, 
which were much appreciated. 

Monday, February 13. — Partly cloudy; wind S. 
W., light; warm. Had a fine plunge over the side be- 
fore breakfast. At that meal Trask sat on the side of 
the table where the movable leg is, and, on getting up, 
knocked the leg out, precipitating half the contents of 
the table, including my unfinished breakfast, to the 
floor in a grand smash. Ran through Jewfish creek, a 
narrow channel bordered by mangroves, with shoals at 
entrance and exit and deep, dark water inside. I trolled 
with a No. eight Skinner spoon, and half-way through 
saw the break of a good fish as he rushed and missed it. 
Let the rod go back, and he struck heavily. Everybody 
happened to be forward, so I let the reel run as much 
as necessary, held the fish in the center of the channel 
and yelled like a wild Indian. They thought I had 
fallen overboard and all came rushing back, stopped 
the engine, and I finally landed a twelve-pound 
grouper, a very strong and hard fighting fish, though 
rather slow in his rushes. 

We went through another sound. Then through 
Steamboat creek, crossed Barnes' sound and down 
through Angelfish creek to the sea. Got aground at 
head of Angelfish, but were off without much trouble. 
Ran up outside of the keys to Cape Florida, and an- 

239 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

chored in Bear's Cut at about four P. M. Caught sev- 
eral spot, grunts and groupers ofif the boat with light 
rod. Hooked something big, but lost him at the first 
rush. 

Tuesday, February 14. — ^Wind shifted to north 
during the night. Partly cloudy and cooler in morn- 
ing, with N. E. wind. Think it will be rough outside, 
and the captain seems to hesitate about going out. Fear 
we may lose our kingfishing, with which we had hoped 
to end the trip gloriously. Fished off boat before 
breakfast, but caught nothing. Captain fussed over a 
lot of trifles and was evidently afraid to venture out, 
but about nine o'clock other boats came along bound 
for the grounds, and we finally started. Found some 
swell outside, but nothing to speak of, and could see 
the white sails of quite a fleet of boats on the grounds 
several miles to the north. When we got near the south- 
ernmost we put out our lines, I using tarpon rod, twen- 
ty-one-thread line and a five-inch block tin squid, and 
Trask trying lighter tackle. Trask gave his rod to 
Roberts for a moment when the first fish struck his 
squid, was reeled in pretty close, and then broke the 
line. I had a number of strikes, the fish leaping five 
feet or six feet into the air and knocking the squid high 
above the water. Presently there came a mighty jerk, 
and the line ran out fifty yards in spite of my fullest 
pressure on the brake pad. Then I checked him, reeled 

240 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

in a little, lost it and more in another dash, and finally 
got the fish near the boat and Roberts hoisted him in 
and swung him into the big fish box, getting one finger 
badly gashed by the sharp teeth in trying to free the 
squid; blue and silver, a yard or more long, fifteen 
pounds. Now we were in the middle of the fleet, and 
the fish were striking every minute or oftener, jumping 
ten feet straight up, knocking the squids into the air, 
and every now and then being hooked. I seemed to 
generally land them, while Trask's lighter tackle lost 
fish after fish. Presently he struck something which, 
in steady, successive surges, ran out his whole two hun- 
dred yards of line and broke it at the end, doubtless a 
heavy shark, of which we could see a number about. 
Twice sharks seized my hooked fish, and were hooked 
themselves. The first was a very large one and im- 
possible to hold, so, at the sudden and huge increase of 
pull, I grasped the reel firmly, threw my whole weight 
back, and broke the line close to the leader. The sec- 
ond shark was smaller and was checked and turned 
somehow after the first rush and brought quite near 
the boat and into plain sight, proving to be about seven 
feet long. There he dashed back and forth while 
I balanced against the swell and skipped from one side 
to the other around the big fish box, while Trask and 
Roberts madly danced the ladies' chain in their efforts 
to get out of the way. It was impossible to land the 

241 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

fish and I only hoped to save my line, so was not sorry 
when a dash under the stern brought it across the rud- 
der and cut the shark loose. 

Trask rigged out with heavier tackle, and we both 
caught fish, from ten to fifteen pounds each, until we 
had a dozen or more. Then I reeled in the line short 
and held the squid within twenty feet of the stern, and 
got strike after strike, the fish showing no caution what- 
ever, and could not avoid hooking one every now and 
then. Then we took our cameras, trying to get a snap 
of a leaping fish, and made several exposures, which 
may turn out good, though the best leaps were gener- 
ally just when we were not ready or the sun was wrong. 

At noon we had about twenty fish and started back 
for Bear's Cut, being fully satisfied. On the way I 
hooked and landed, after a great fight, much the largest 
kingfish we took, four feet one inch long, and weighing 
thirty-five pounds. His first rush took out nearly my 
whole line. Came in to Bear's Cut, had luncheon, 
shifted into civilized garb and started for Miami, and 
the end of our trip. Got aground on the bank near the 
cut, but got off in half an hour. 

The kingfish, in combined power, dash, vigor, 
beauty and grace, surpasses any fish I have ever known. 
His numbers, on certain very restricted grounds, seem 
unlimited. There must have been at least forty boats 
out today, and the hand-line fishermen caught an enor- 

242 



LOG OF THE MYSTERY 

mous number. Even with our rods, which are very 
much slower than hand lines, we could certainly have 
taken many times our catch had we been willing to do 
so. We have had a delightful experience with a most 
noble fish, have taken discreetly of his bounty, and 
none of our trophies will be wasted. 




243 



An Indian Mound 




N THE summer of 1873, three of us, 
boys from eighteen to twenty years old, 
were camped on the Island of Put-in- 
Bay, in the western end of Lake Erie. 
We had a boat, flat-bottomed, about 
sixteen feet long, and rigged to carry 
a spritsail and pull two pairs of oars. 
We had a small sail made for her, and 
said: "This sail will be a great help when the wind 
favors us. At other times we will row." But we never 
did row. When the wind was contrary we waited for 
It to change. We did not row five miles all through 
that glorious summer. And we had a splendid time. 
We stayed on one of that cluster of islands until tired 
of it, and then, when the wind came favorable, sailed 
cf¥ to another. We fished, hunted, geologized a little, 
plundered the farmer's vines, and generally enjoyed 
ourselves. But finally we did really do some serious 
work, and that is what I mean to tell about. 

The northern barrier of Sandusky Bay is a long 
island, named Catawba, and only separated from the 
mainland by a creek. We had heard of a remarkable 
Indian mound on the western shore of this island, and 
one beautiful July morning started out to find it. We 
had shovels, picks, and all the necessary digging im- 



245 



AN INDIAN MOUND 

plements; kettle, frying-pan, coffee-pot, and all the 
more necessary feeding implements; plenty of stores; 
lots of muscle and pluck, and last, but not least, a favor- 
able wind. On the western shore of Catawba Island 
is a little islet, barely a quarter of a mile square, called 
Sugar Rock. It lies in a deep bay and is connected with 
the main island, on the north, by a narrow reef of peb- 
bles, bearing a single line of trees. On the south there is 
a similar reef, not reaching the shore and, through the 
interval, is a passage to a broad and quiet lagoon, one 
of the few places where the great nelumbium shows its 
strange pallid flowers and its wash-basin leaves. The 
islet is covered with trees of good size, is rocky and un- 
even in surface and, on the southwesterly side, rises 
into cliffs of some sixty feet in height. On the highest 
point of these clififs, facing the west, was the mound we 
were anxious to investigate. 

Our first camp was on the shore of the lagoon, and 
that proved to be a mistake. Not that the ground was 
hard. We were used to that, and a convenient straw- 
stack materially palliated that difficulty. But how 
thick the mosquitoes were! Right here let me enter 
my protest against Captain Mayne Reid. We had all 
read his books, and had learned that fresh pennyroyal, 
bruised and used profusely, would certainly drive away 
the boldest mosquito. We were at the believing age, 
and believed in Captain Mayne Reid and pennyroyal. 
So we got lots of it and calmly prepared for the night 

246 



AN INDIAN MOUND 

and mosquitoes. We bruised that pennyroyal; rubbed 
it on face and hands; covered ourselves with it. Did it 
hinder the robust mosquitoes of the wild and watery 
west? Not a bit of it. They liked it. It seemed to stir 
them up to a more eager activity than common, which 
was unnecessary. Put it down in big letters that penny- 
royal, as a mosquito preventive, is a humbug. 

In the morning we changed our camp to the west- 
ern shore of Sugar Islet itself. It took a good while 
to get settled, and to get the commissary department 
properly supplied and going. One never understands 
how much time and labor has to go to supplying the 
ordinary requirements and comforts of life, until he 
gets into camp and does for himself. And then he 
don't get the ordinary comforts, but he has some ex- 
traordinary pleasures that go far to make up for their 
absence. But, nevertheless, a man who is ordinarily 
weak and lazy had better have a guide to do the camp 
work. The extra expense is cheap at its cost, and so is 
the extra comfort. 

There was a confiding farmer near by with whom 
we negotiated for supplies, and obtained them at rates 
which seemed to us remarkable. White Clover honey 
at eight cents a pound; splendid household bread at 
four cents a loaf, and chickens on the hoof at fifteen 
cents apiece. The latter were running loose over the 
whole neighborhood. We had no firearms, and had to 
do the best we could with pebbles from the beach for 

247 



AN INDIAN MOUND 

artillery. There was a good deal of labor to the cap- 
ture of each chicken, but lots of fun in it, and it was 
afternoon before the camp was fairly organized and 
victualled, and we could get at the mound. 

On the westerly angle of the islet, where the clififs 
are highest, a level platform, approximately circular 
and about sixty feet in diameter, has been constructed, 
by filling the inequalities with limestone boulders, and 
in the center of this platform stands a mound, at pres- 
ent about ten feet in height and forty feet in diameter. 
Its surface was, and is, covered with loose masses of 
limestone, such as are now found everywhere on the 
islet, varying in size, but none too large for a man to 
lift. Upon the mound were two or three good sized 
stumps of the red cedar, their roots striking down 
through the boulders, and blackberry bushes and other 
brushwood made quite a tangle over it. Near the cen- 
ter was an excavation about four feet deep, made by a 
former exploring party, and we determined to attack 
at that point, widening and lengthening the hole. 

The covering of boulders proved to be from one 
to two feet deep, and among them were enormous quan- 
tities of human bones, irregularly scattered, and much 
broken, but unmistakable. There must have been two 
or three bushels in the space we uncovered, which was 
a very small part of the entire surface. Beneath the 
boulders was an irregular layer of black vegetable 
earth, averaging perhaps six inches in depth, and be- 

248 



AN INDIAN MOUND 

neath this was a hard and compact mass of yellowish- 
brown clay, which formed the bulk of the mound. 
I'here is no such clay on the islet, and it must have been 
brought there in canoes, and thence carried to the site 
on men's backs. That clay was extraordinarily hard 
to dig, being very tough and dense, and containing 
small boulders, which were always ready to catch the 
edge of spade or the point of pick. Soon nothing but 
the pick could be used, and it took a good many min- 
utes to work out a shovelful of earth. We were all city 
boys, pretty muscular and healthy, but not used to hard 
manual labor and the work told on us rapidly. But we 
stuck to it, taking alternately the pick, the spade, and 
the hoisting basket, and none of us thought of giving in 
until we had got to the bottom of that mound. Still 
supper time was welcome, and the hot coffee and 
broiled chicken were more delicious than anything 
Delmonico can give us now. Then how good the pipe 
was, as we sat around our camp-fire, made of red-cedar 
driftwood; and how soft the ground seemed when we 
rolled up in our blankets under the little tent, and how 
quickly we went to sleep, in spite of the pint of strong 
cofifee inside of each of us. Then the glorious bath at 
sunrise, a hearty breakfast, and back to the mound 
again, with muscles that were pretty stifif at first from 
yesterday's labors, but which limbered up after a few 
m.inutes performance on the pick. 

So we worked for two days, finding very rarely a 

250 



AN INDIAN MOUND 

fragment of bone, and twice or thrice an arrow head, 
but nothing of particular interest until nearly the end 
of the third day. Then, beneath the clay and resting 
upon another stratum of black vegetable soil, nearly 
but not exactly in the center of the mound, we found a 
hearth, about seven feet in diameter by six inches thick 
and composed of pebbles from the beach. Upon this 
hearth lay about six inches of fine gray ashes, so com- 
pletely burned that no fragment of charred wood or 
bone could be distinguished, and containing no imple- 
ments so far as we could discover. At one end of this 
hearth, and almost exactly in the center of the mound, 
was a pile of limestone boulders, about three feet square 
and somewhat calcined on the side toward the hearth. 
Beneath these boulders was a deep cleft in the solid 
rock, such a crack as often occurs in these limestone 
cliffs. This we cleared of the earth and boulders which 
filled it, as far as we could reach, but found nothing. 

This was the whole result of all our hard work, 
and seemed to us at the time rather small, but now I am 
not so sure of that. Here was a site extremely unusual 
in character and surroundings, and exceptionally con- 
spicuous. A great amount of labor was expended in 
leveling the surface and preparing the hearth, and the 
fire kindled there was visible for many miles around. 
Then came the very great task of carrying the clay 
from a considerable distance, and erecting the mound. 
All these things show that the fire was of extraordinary 

251 



AN INDIAN MOUND 

importance, and the accumulation of human bones 
mingled with the covering of boulders seems to indicate 
that the spot possessed some great interest, sacred or 
historical. 

Now what was the purpose of this fire? Was it 
sacrificial or funereal, and are the bones among the 
boulders contemporaneous with the mound, or subse- 
quent to it? I don't know, and I wish someone who 
does would tell me. 




2J5: 



Winter at Nassau 





1 


!. 


«k 



EW PROVIDENCE is physically a 
small and low coral island, the cap of 
a submerged mountain peak, sound- 
ings of twenty-five hundred fathoms 
being found within a few miles of the 
shore. Politically it and the other 
Bahamas constitute a self-governing 
English colony, with a Governor Gen- 
eral and subordinate officials appointed by the Crown 
and a population of some seventy-five thousand, four- 
fifths of whom are black. Being English it is orderly 
and clean, and crime graver than petty theft is prac- 
tically unknown. Economically it is the producer of 
sponges, sisal, fish and some fruit. The total produc- 
tive industry is small and the rocky and infertile soil 
gives little inducement for cultivation, so that much 
of the land, once cultivated by slave labor, has gone 
back to wilderness and is covered by impenetrable jun- 
gle. The earth has but little to recommend it from 
the point of view of utility, beautiful and picturesque 
as it is; but the other two elements, air and water, are 
of a perfection beyond words. The shallow seas glow 
with turquoise, opal and amethyst, the deeps beyond 
are of the richest and purest sapphire, while every 
breath of air is laden with perfume and touches the 
cheek like a caress. From December to April the cli- 



253 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

mate is delightful, warm but not sultry, breezy but 
never chill, and all the gardens blossom with roses and 
blaze with the splendid scarlet hibiscus, while the great 
plumes of the cocoa palms sway everywhere and grape- 
fruit and oranges gleam golden through the green. 

Our house, on the crest of the ridge just west of 
''Government House," was a picturesque old structure 
of coral blocks and mahogany, and equipped with black 
and smiling handmaids at seventeen dollars per month 
for three. Excellent mutton and passable beef were 
to be had in the markets, the best of fish, brought 
in alive, were plentiful, and big, spiny lobsters could be 
had for from three to eight cents each. Cohorts of 
dark-skinned market women bearing on their heads 
trays of fruit, vegetables, small eggs and lean chickens, 
came in procession to the back door every morning. 
Milk, cream and butter came in tins from the North, 
groceries from the States and canned things from Eng- 
land, and very decent cigars could be had for three 
cents each. 

The outer protection of the harbor is a long, nar- 
row island, on the outside of which is a beach of white 
coral sand, up to and over which brims constantly the 
wonderful clear blue water, making the perfection of 
bathing. Much of this islet is a fruit orchard and the 
bather is encouraged to consume gratis as much and as 
many kinds of tropical fruit as he can find room for, 
and the flavor of those oranges and grape fruit, fully 

254 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

ripened on the tree, is a revelation to the Northerner, 
who has only eaten fruit picked partly green and rip- 
ened in transit. 

For a hundred dollars a month I chartered a 
staunch two-masted boat about thirty feet long, with a 
crew of three blacks, all good sailors and willing, 
cheerful and biddable, as all Nassau negroes seem to be, 
and fished diligently and regularly on nearly every day 
for the five months from December to May, when wind 
and sea permitted, while my wife and daughters some- 
times went along, but oftener amused themselves other- 
wise ashore. 

Occasionally we tried bottom fishing, taking with 
conch bait blue, yellow and black angelfish, porgies, 
turbot, parrot fish and many others, most interesting in 
their amazingly brilliant colors and strange shapes. 
We were most successful in water sixty feet deep or so, 
and there, by means of a water glass, or without it when 
the surface happened to be still, fish at the bottom are 
clearly visible. If one could keep small bait fish alive 
he could doubtless have the greatest sport using these 
for the large kingfish, amberjack and others that will 
not touch a still, dead bait; but my boat was not fitted 
with a well and a tub or barrel proved a very unsatis- 
factory substitute, the "goggle eyes" dying very quickly 
in spite of everything that could be done. Most of my 
sport was therefore had by trolling. 

256 



■ *;s-T^*sMsajiBaB«i^r;4EaK:ws" 




WINTER AT NASSAU 

The fish one takes in this way average large, with 
an occasional monster and are pre-eminently strong, so 
that the tackle must be suitably robust. A twenty-two 
ounce greenheart tarpon rod, six and one-half feet long, 
a large reel holding two hundred yards of twenty-four 
thread linen line and fitted with "Rabbeth" drag and 
pad brake, a four-foot leader of twenty-two gauge 
piano wire and a 12-0 tarpon hook, proved to be the 
proper outfit. Where the leader was made fast to the 
swivel a two-inch end of the wire should be left free 
and projecting, to catch the bait and keep it from run- 
ning up the line, with the drag of the water when a 
hooked fish rushes, otherwise another fish will prob- 
ably strike at the bait and cut your line ofif. The big 
hook is passed down through the mouth and out at the 
gill of a seven-inch bait, then turned and put through 
the body near the tail, the mouth of the bait is sewed 
up and made fast to the hook eye, to save pull and hold 
it in place, and one is ready for business. It was my 
custom to keep two rods ready baited and use them 
alternately, so that no time was wasted when a bait had 
been cut by a strike. Lines must be renewed once a 
month or oftener, and wire leaders every second day, 
as the salt water attacks and weakens them very rap- 
idly. 

Reels must be lashed to the rod as firmly as possi- 
ble with half a dozen turns of stout line, a makeshift 
device but absolutely essential. When tackle makers 

258 




On Salt Key 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

acquire sense enough to fit heavy sea rods with locking 
reel bands, such as are put on all good salmon rods, 
lashing will be unnecessary and the outfit greatly im- 
proved. The backward pull and oscillation in reeling 
a heavy fish is almost certain to loosen a sliding band, 
so that an unlashed reel is pretty sure to drop off, in the 
height of a combat, with most disastrous results. The 
"Rabbeth" drag consists of a friction clutch, connect- 
ing reel handle and gears, the pressure being adjust- 
able at will by thumbscrews, and should be usually set 
so that a straight pull of five or six pounds will draw 
line while the handle is firmly held. When a fish pulls 
more than that amount the frictions automatically give 
line, while a steady and strong pull is always kept up, 
so that he should never get any slack. With a fixed 
handle and pad brake only there is a danger moment, 
when the fish rushes and the hand is changed from 
handle to brake, and then it is that lines are snarled, 
knuckles barked and fish lost. Should the pull of the 
friction drag not prove great enough, one can readily 
increase it by turning the thumbscrews even while 
playing a "whopper." The pad brake can also be 
operated by the left hand, so that as great strain as the 
tackle will bear can be used at any time and varied at 
pleasure. The drag as now made has no means of lock- 
ing the central nut, holding the handle to the reel, and 
some device for this purpose would be a much needed 
improvement, as the great strain will soon work this 

260 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

screw loose. I have found it necessary to set it up with a 
screw driver half a dozen times a day, this need having 
been taught me by my reel handle coming off while 
playing a big rock fish, which promptly got into a 
coral hole, giving me half an hour's hard work to save 
my line, with the loss of fish, leader and hook. The 
rush of a big fish will whirl the friction disks so fast 
that one can scorch his hand by carelessly touching the 
metal of the handle, which gets far too hot for fingers 
to bear with comfort. A very strong spoon, seven 
inches long and one and a half wide, with a ten-naught 
hook firmly attached to the after end, will be found very 
killing when sufficient speed can be had. Those usu- 
ally sold in tackle shops are far too thin and weak for 
this heroic sport and bend and break disastrously. A 
proper spoon should be of steel heavily nickeled and 
bear a hook of the best class. 

This tackle is the same used for tarpon and tuna, 
which may weigh over two hundred pounds each, and 
may seem unnecessarily large for fish that do not often 
exceed sixty pounds, gamy though they are. But the 
tarpon and tuna are taken from small boats or power 
launches, which can be either towed by the fish or 
follow him with oars or steam. To take fish of such 
size and strength from a large sail boat, where all the 
work must be done by rod and reel alone, would be 
absolutely impossible, and with these conditions the 
West Indian angler will often wish that his weapons 

261 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

were stronger still, before he lands a fifty pound king- 
fish or amberjack or gets a forty pound rockfish out of 
a hole in the coral. 

For many miles along the northern shore of New 
Providence stretches a band of islands, keys and rocks, 
between and inside of which are channels and passages 
chat are perfect for protected pleasure sailing and, to 
the inexperienced eye, look like the finest possible fish- 
ing ground, but the noblest fish rarely enter these and 
one's best fishing must be in the open ocean outside the 
islands, this being perfectly safe for a staunch boat, as 
a refuge is never far distant. Near the shore and along 
the reefs, in shoal water and over the purple spots, 
mutton fish, groupers, rockfish and others abound, 
with every now and then a big amber, yellow or black 
jack, while kingfish and mackerel are more common 
farther out where the sapphire water begins. Barra- 
cuda are everywhere, though usually more numerous 
toward the shore or reefs, while every now and then 
one takes a wanderer from South or North, often un- 
known to your boatmen and sometimes undescribed in 
English, if not in any tongue. 

The sturdiest fighters of all are the members of 
the "jack" tribe, black, yellow, horse-eye, amber and 
others. They fight to a finish and with a power and 
fury that is alarming; even the smaller resist astonish- 
ingly and, when one has subdued and brought to gafif 
a fifty pound amberjack, he is more than willing to 

262 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

let his aching arms and wearied heart and lungs get 
a good rest before he tackles another. Every foot of 
line one gets from a jack has to be hardly earned and 
when the fish is seen through the water he is pretty 
nearly ready to come into the boat. The jacks are of 
a very varied color and form and the specific distinc- 
tions are still somewhat doubtful. One day I took 
three fish that we called blackjack, one of which had 
the front dorsal long and falcate, the second had the fin 
short and plain, and the third was half way between 
the first two, while in size, color and general appear- 
ance they were almost identical. The blackjack, horse- 
eye, and the large amberjack are reputed poisonous, 
and this was entirely confirmed by the experience of 
my crew with two big fellows of my own catch, as de- 
scribed elsewhere. The yellow finned and black finned 
rockfish (mycteroperca) are also believed to be very 
dangerous, though I can give no personal testimony 
except that they are hard to conquer and that nobody 
will eat them. The ill repute of the barracuda as ven- 
omous is not deserved, so far as my own experience goes, 
though they have chopped off short so many of my 
hooked kingfish and mackerel that I loathe and detest 
their species, bold biters and active fighters though they 
are. The whole mackerel family, rangers of the open 
sea and preying on living fish only, or what they take 
for such, seem to be free of this reproach. and can be 
always eaten without danger. Trim, powerful, swift, 

263 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

unarmored, silvery, iridescent, beautiful, depending on 
power and speed alone, they are the nobles of the sea, 
and the ocean fisherman loves them best of all, from the 
huge tuna down to the dainty Spanish mackerel of the 
golden spots. They are the most dashing of fighters, 
the most lovely in color and form, and the most de- 
licious food of any class of salt water fish known to me. 
Long and well may they flourish and may I soon meet 
them again. 

The typical Spanish mackerel, according to Jor- 
dan and Evermann, has the golden spots separate, in 
irregular rows and not coalescing. Of the hundred or 
more I took at Nassau every single one had these spots, 
at least in the first row below the lateral line for two- 
thirds its length, joined into a continuous golden brown 
band, exactly similar in shape and position to the dark 
band shown on J. and E.'s cut of S. regalis, the spotted 
cero or kingfish, which I have never caught or seen. 
Evidently S. cavalla, the kingfish without spots, is the 
common form about Florida and Nassau. On the 
grounds near Miami I have repeatedly seen this latter 
fish, on the original strike, go ten feet or more into the 
air, while at Nassau they never more than broke the 
water and this only at the strike. I judge that this leap 
only occurs when the fish rushes at the bait from far 
below the surface and the impetus carries him into the 
air. At neither place have I ever seen a hooked king- 
fish leap during play, as the barracuda very often and 

264 




Three King^fish 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

repeatedly does. The statements on page 288 of Jor- 
dan and Evermann's great book, and by Dr. J. A. Hen- 
shall, quoted in Forest and Stream of February third, 
1906, as to the leaping of this fish, if taken by them- 
selves without explanation, give the reader a false im- 
pression. Having taken some hundred of this fish I am 
certain that S. cavalla very rarely, if ever, leaps to 
get rid of a hook, as the black bass and barracuda reg- 
ularly do. Mr. Holder, however, states that he found 
the spotted kingfish, S. regalis, leap repeatedly after 
being hooked, and of course his word is not to be 
doubted. It would therefore seem that these two very 
closely related fish have this decided difiference in habit, 
which is curious. Regalis appears to be a more South- 
ern form than cavalla and is reported to me to be 
rarely taken on the Florida coast or around the Baha- 
mas. 

The natives of Nassau know nothing of scientific 
fishing, the use of the rod and reel is practically un- 
known to them, and proper tackle cannot be had 
but must be bought in the North. The native "Conch" 
trolls with a big white cotton line, conspicuous enough 
to scare any fish, and one foolish enough to risk a bite 
is hauled in by main strength, often tearing away in the 
process. By actual test I found that the rod, using a 
small dark colored line, would get more than twice as 
many strikes as the hand line and would save a much 
larger percentage of the fish. Where fish are unusu- 

266 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

ally numerous or exceptionally bold, as on the great 
grounds at Miami, a hand line will of course take many 
more fish than a rod, simply because they are hauled 
in "endways" and not allowed to take any time in play, 
but the sport is to all right minded anglers enormously 
inferior. 

It was the morning of the last day of January. A 
brisk northerly breeze was sending big turquoise rollers 
over the bar of Nassau harbor and barring with white 
the deep purple sea outside. The New York steamer 
lay at anchor in the roadstead, and the stout pilotboat 
"Kestrel" tacked back and forth between the steamer 
and the white lighthouse on Hog Island point, swinging 
over the long seas and scattering spray as she met one 
higher than ordinary. Over her quarters protruded 
two stiff rods, each carrying two hundred yards of 
twenty-four thread linen line, tipped with four feet of 
piano wire, armed with a hook measuring an inch and 
a half across the bend, baited with seven-inch google- 
eyes, and held respectively by Mr. Umbstaetter of the 
"Black Cat" and myself. We had patiently see-sawed 
back and forth for nearly two hours, covering the 
ground where the refuse cast from the ship is likely to 
gather fish together, but had taken nothing but an 
eight-pound yellowjack and a couple of snaky and lan- 
cet-fanged barracuda, which latter we had grown to 
think vermin, strong and bold fighters though they are. 
At last there was a violent surge on my rod, a furious 

267 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

scream of the reel as the line tore away, and the boat 
began to swing up into the wind to ease the strain, 
when a wild shriek came from the other reel. There 
we were, tossing in a heavy sea and driven by a fresh 
wind, with a big fish fast on each side of the boat at the 
same time, so that the quarry had every advantage. 
Repeatedly a fierce rush would exhaust our lines down 
to the last few coils, in spite of the utmost pressure of 
the pad brakes, and we would painfully retrieve a few 
yards, only to have it snatched away again. Luckily 
each fish kept on his own side of the boat until their 
first fury was somewhat quelled; but then they circled 
and twisted our lines together. It looked pretty hope- 
less, but in a momentary lull Captain John caught my 
rod, ran clear aft, passed it twice around my friend's 
line, and got it into my hands again with a few turns 
still on the spool. This crucial point passed, the rest 
of the battle was less strenuous, and we finally reeled 
in, gafTed and boated two kingfish of such size that it 
seemed absurd that our slight lines should have held 
them. 

With these two blue and silver iridescent beauties 
on board, we again swung back and forth over the 
same ground, and just as we had about given up hope 
of more, I had another furious strike and battle, finally 
conquering a third kingfish, larger than either of the 
first two. 

268 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

These three fish were carefully weighed in the 
presence of a good part of the population of the island, 
perhaps two hours after they were taken, and scaled 
thirty-eight, forty-one and fifty pounds full measure, 
my own catch being the larger two. They are gener- 
ally said to be the largest kingfish taken at Nassau for 
many years, if they were ever exceeded; certainly I 
had never before taken, seen or known of any ap- 
proaching the largest or exceeding the smallest, and 
my skipper, a boatman and fisherman among these 
islands as boy and man, says the same thing. I had 
very diligently fished these grounds for two months, 
and taken no kingfish over ten pounds, except one of 
thirty, which was considered very large. I claim no 
credit except for ordinary skill, but certainly had luck 
of the finest. 

The play of these big fish consists of tremendous 
runs and dashes of most startling violence, with inter- 
vals of comparative quiescence, during which much 
needed line can be regained. At the very last, and 
when the fish first sees the boat, there is apt to be a 
sudden and furious rush, which is very likely to take 
the fisherman off his guard. An inexperienced guest 
of mine recently had his twenty-four thread line broken 
like a single thread by such a final dash of what was 
manifestly a very big fish. My two fish completely 
wore out a new rubber pad brake. 

269 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

On February eighth I took, after a most strenuous 
battle, a kingfish measuring fifty-seven inches in length 
and weighing fifty-five pounds and a little over for 
good measure. He put up a splendid fight, first mak- 
ing long runs with the speed and fury characteristic 
of his noble race, and afterward resisting all invitation 
to a nearer acquaintance, with the heavy deep surges 
and bulldog resistance more often displayed by the 
amberjack. In spite of the greatest strain I dared put 
on my stout tackle it took at least half an hour to bring 
him to gaf]f, and neither the fish nor myself had any 
rest during the whole of that time. Sometimes the 
fish took charge and sometimes I did, while my crew 
of three were kept busy trimming sail to help keep 
him clear of the boat, under which he made a series 
of rushes that brought my heart well up in my throat, 
with a cold chill every time the line grazed the keel. 

This splendid fellow was greatly helped in the 
contest by the fact that my largest amberjack, fifty-one 
inches long and weighing fifty-two and one-half 
pounds, was captured only an hour or so before, after 
a struggle from which I was only partly rested. Of 
course such an amberjack is not considered very large, 
but the captor of a fish of this size will not soon forget 
him. As a final result both my forearms were pain- 
fully sore and lame at night and the fishes were spared 
any further annoyance from me for a couple of days. 

270 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

The struggles of a hooked fish excite all his neigh- 
bors, and they will follow him closely and strike at any- 
thing they see nearby. This is the case even with barra- 
cuda and amberjack, and notably so with the kingfish, 
which, like most of the mackerel family, is gregarious. 
If a second bait is thrown out when the first fish is 
weary and close to the boat, it is more than likely to be 
taken by one of his agitated satellites. 

The fishing here is gloriously uncertain. One can 
put in several days with small results and then the same 
ground will suddenly yield an abundant and astonish- 
ing harvest. The fish, at least those that will bite, ap- 
pear to be much fewer than on the Florida reef, so 
one's string is smaller in number, but the individuals 
are likely to be of greatly superior size. On the Miami 
grounds the kingfish swarm so that one's catch is often 
limited only by his sense of propriety, but the fish will 
average about ten pounds each and very rarely exceed 
twenty-five. Here I have never taken more than five 
kingfish in one day, and many days have been blank 
or nearly so; but those landed have run from five to 
fifty-five pounds and have averaged twenty-five or 
more. As one big fish is worth a hundred small ones, 
from the view point of sport, the superiority of Nas- 
sau is manifest. 

Beside the barracuda, kingfish and amberjack, one 
also takes in trolling groupers, rockfish and the beau- 

271 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

tiful and succulent mutton fish, all often of large size. 
The latter are taken in shoal water and near the reefs 
and seem to bite best when a considerable surf is roll- 
ing in. To handle a sailboat in such a place, practi- 
cally in the outer edge of the breakers, takes skill of a 
high class in the crew. My own outfit, from Eleu- 
thera, one of the outer islands, are a capital lot of men, 
and the way they brought the "Kestrel" back and forth 
over the spot where a big grouper had got me fast in 
a rock-hole, so that I saved rig and fish, in a heavy surf 
and in such shoal water that our centerboard scraped 
once or twice, was the very greatest credit to their sea- 
manship. 

My crew dried and salted the big amberjack and, 
with others, ate freely of it. Every partaker was very 
ill within a few hours, vomiting and purging violently, 
and next day my two men appeared with their eyes so 
swollen and inflamed as to be almost closed. This 
swelling lasted for some days, their eyes remained 
sensitive and irritable for weeks and they also com- 
plained of severe and general itching of the skin. This 
is a well authenticated case of the poisoning from eat- 
ing fish which the natives dread so much, and the first 
instance which has come within my own observation. 
Large amberjack had better be omitted from one's bill 
of fare; fortunately they are so hard and tough as to 
be little temptation. 

272 




^ 

^ 

^ 

■^ 



'3 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

My catch of the twelfth was a varied one; three 
Spanish mackerel, two rockfish, a fine Nassau grouper, 
four barracuda and a four-foot shark. The last took 
the troll meant for better fish and put up a really fine 
fight, dashing to and fro like a kingfish, which he was 
supposed to be until the very last. Finally I struck 
something very heavy, the boat swung up into the wind 
at my hail, and the fish paused a moment. Then began 
a steady but irresistible motion; both thumbs pressed 
hard on the brake and the stout rod bent into a hoop, 
so that another pound would have broken it. Yard by 
yard the line was dragged away and the coil left grew 
smaller and smaller. I hung on desperately, calling to 
my crew to get the boat round and follow, and they 
tried their best to do it. The sails slowly filled and the 
boat swung a little toward the rigid line; but all was 
useless. The coil ran down and down, the bright spin- 
dle showed itself, the last turns slipped away, there 
was a sharp snap, and I was left with an empty reel 
and a broken heart, while the monster sailed off with 
the whole line towing after him. Neither myself nor 
my boatmen were to blame for this disastrous result; 
all of us did everything possible, but the fish was sim- 
ply too huge and strong for us. From the character 
of this strike and movements he was pretty certainly 
an amberjack, and his weight could not be less than a 
hundred pounds and probably much exceeded that. 

274 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

With a power boat capable of quickly following, or 
with a rowboat that could be towed, after the manner 
of tarpon fishing, we might have saved him; but from 
our heavy sail boat, playing him from the reel alone, 
this was certainly impossible. 

So vanished into space the largest game fish I have 
ever hooked, leaving anguish and desolation behind. 

A few days later we hooked and played to ex- 
haustion, both of the fish and myself, a kingfish that 
made my fifty-five pounder look like a baby. After a 
most arduous combat he finally lay on the water only 
thirty yards away, practically helpless, and the reel 
was steadily bringing him closer and closer to the 
waiting gaff. Suddenly there was a rush of a great 
body through the water and a shark, at least fourteen 
feet long, swallowed that whole huge fish in just two 
bites, leaving me with a cut line and helpless. But for 
the fact that my crew showed such talent and power 
in vituperation as to make my assistance unneeded, I 
fear that the temptation to be profane might then have 
proved too strong for me. I am confident that this fish 
was close to six feet long and weighed at least a hun- 
dred pounds. 

While trolling around Salt Key I had a very sud- 
den and violent strike and the line was nearly ex- 
hausted before the first rush was checked,, in spite of 
full use both of my pad brake and the Rabbeth drag. 

275 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

Then followed a combat equal in strength to that fur- 
nished by a forty-pound amberjack, but with longer 
rushes. I expected to develop a fifty-pound kingfish, 
but finally brought to gafif a strange fish, thirty-eight 
inches long, fifteen inches deep, less than four inches 
in greatest thickness and weighing twenty-four pounds. 
The pectoral fin was a foot long, crescent-shaped and 
very narrow. He was dressed in light blue and silver 
with most beautiful pink and pearl iridescence, and 
the broad upper lip was a deep and brilliant blue. 
The other fins were greenish with strong dark spots. 
My crew called him a whipfish, but said they had 
never seen one so large. Another African fisherman 
insisted that he was a "permit." In general style he 
seemed to me similar to the numerous and varied tribe 
of jacks, though very different from any species famil- 
iar to me. He was afterward identified by the Smith- 
sonian as Hynnis Cubensis, having no common name, 
but closely related to the pompanos, and so far de- 
scribed only in Spanish, having been found on the 
south coast of Cuba and being rare there. 

A few days later the "Kestrel" was swinging to and 
fro over the kingfish ground near Green Key. The 
fish were not hungry, only a couple of barracuda and 
a five-pound mackerel had been gaffed so far, and I 
was getting rather sleepy and nearly ready to start for 
home; so, when we gybed the sails and made a long 

276 





Barracuda 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

turn, I did not bother to reel in and the line lay in 
something like a half circle. There was a sharp strike 
and that curve changed to a straight line in half a 
shake of a lamb's tail. The way that line swept side- 
ways, cutting off the tops of the waves, was a new 
experience, and the rush straight away that followed 
was thrilling. The fish was permitted to take his time 
and not hurried. There were fifteen minutes of very 
dashing play before he showed through the clear wa- 
ter, similar to the fight of a kingfish, but remarkably 
fast, and we finally boated something very like S. ca- 
valla, but more slender, with longer head and more 
widely forked tail. The back was dark greenish-blue, 
the sides silvery with many vertical dark bars of hour- 
glass shape, which faded out within ten minutes, and 
when the photograph was taken, three hours after, the 
sides and belly had grown quite dusky. 

This fish was forty-six inches long, five and one- 
half inches deep and nearly cylindrical, and weighed 
twenty-two pounds, while a kingfish of the same length 
would weigh thirty-five. On reference to Jordan and 
Evermann, he proved to be a peto {A. solandri)^ said 
to be not uncommon about Cuba, and distinguished 
from the other mackerels by the long first dorsal, which 
contained twenty-four spines. He is evidently not a 
frequent visitor here, as my crew had never seen one, 
and proved to be super-excellent on the table. I have 
never hooked a more dashing fighter. 

278 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

Among unusual fish taken were two specimens of 
the little tunny, differing from the great tuna only in 
size and some not noticeable details of structure. Very 
compact, full of energy, and very handsome in his 
dress of green and silver, but barely eatable, the flesh 
being dark, coarse and strong. Those I took weighed 
about five pounds each, though they are reported to 
reach twenty. Over the reefs I have also caught the 
agujon or houndfish, very long, slender and cylin- 
drical, with a narrow bill closely set with sharp, green 
teeth, this being also the color of the bones. This fish 
fights very vigorously and on the surface, runs up on 
the line and throws himself out of the water. A ten- 
pounder, four feet long, is my largest; but I have seen 
one weighing sixteen. He is admirable on the table. 

Sharks are quite numerous in these waters and 
will take the trolled bait if the boat is moving slowly. 
They give quite a surdy and lively play, which ends in 
disappointment when the shovel nose and olive green 
back appear. I have taken quite a number, the largest 
being about six feet nine inches and estimated to weigh 
about one hundred pounds. The blacks all hate sharks 
and my crew took great pleasure in carving up those 
we caught and throwing over the pieces to be eaten by 
their fellows. 

For five miles west and fifty miles east-of Nassau 
light I have personally tried the waters. Whenever 

279 



WINTER AT NASSAU 

the weather permits fishing at all one can be pretty 
sure of getting something, usually will make a reason- 
ably good catch, and every now and then will take 
either an extraordinary number, something unusually 
large, or a specimen that is new and strange. The un- 
expected and startling is always possible. Whether 
this constitutes good fishing depends upon the taste of 
the individual, but it is certainly good enough for me. 
All the books on fishing give elaborate directions 
for the care of salt water lines, involving their being 
unreeled every night, washed in fresh water, dried and 
reeled up again. This will undoubtedly prolong the 
life of a line, but takes much valuable time, is a tre- 
mendous lot of bother, and in my opinion not worth 
while. A two-hundred yard tarpon line costs three 
dollars, will last a month without any care and per- 
haps twice that with the devotion of at least an hour 
every night to fixing it up. I prefer to buy a new line 
once a month and save the fussing. An enamelled 
trout fly line will last two or three years, without any 
attention whatever, if used as much as my lines are. 
When a good hard pull with the hand breaks the 
lower end of a line a few feet can be cut off, and a new 
line substituted when at last the old one gets too short 
for convenient use. 



280 



The Song of the Spear 




HAVE a new song to sing — 

A song of shallow seas, turquoise and 
purple, gleaming and clear as 
glass; 
Of quiet bays shadowed by dark over- 
hanging mangroves, with roots 
like spiders; 
Of wide flats, brown and yellow over the sands and 

seamed with winding blue channels; 
Of the solemn figures and hoarse voices of the herons 

white and blue; 
Of blazing sun, pale blue sky and soft and balmy 

breaths of air; 
Of emerald cays, ringed with white beaches sparkling 
like diamonds and set in sapphire, turquoise and 
amethyst. 

There the great ray, the devilfish, swift, mighty, tons in 

weight, spreads his huge black wings; 
The sawfish, broad and strong, brandishes his serrated 

blade; 
The shark, stealthy, fierce and ravenous, lies in wait 

for his prey; 
The sea turtle, longer than a man, sleeps floating on the 

quiet waters; 

281 



THE SONG OF THE SPEAR 

The tarpon, gleaming in silver mail, leaps into the sun 
and crashes back into the sea; 

The porpoise rolls over the waves, appearing and van- 
ishing again and again; 

The stingray lurks in the shallows, ready to wield his 
barbed and poisoned lance. 

See the light boat steal along, driven by a noiseless 

paddle; 
The figure poised in the bow, erect, alert, silent and 

watchful; 
The heavy shaft, barbed with steel, grasped in the right 

hand, the coil of line in the left. 
Look! the keen eye catches the faint shadow that tells 

of a great fish. 
A whispered word, a cautious retreat, a circuit to avoid 

the watchful eyes; 
A stealthy approach, a wave of the hand, the paddle 

stops, the boat glides on without sound. 
The long shaft rises slowly and is poised for the cast. 

Suddenly the spear flashes through the air and vanishes 

in the depths; 
There is a wild rush through the water, a fierce strain 

on the line; 
The prey darts madly away, the barbs sunk deep in its 

side; 

282 



THE SONG OF THE SPEx^R 

The boat swerves fiercely and races along, driving 
surges and spray from its bow; 

Then come minutes and hours of fierce struggle, of 
hope and fear, confidence and despair, until at 
length the quarry, exhausted, yields. 

And the trophies of victory are taken, honorable, wit- 
nesses of skill and endurance. 

Worthy the object, the slaughter of the fierce and rav- 
enous beasts of the sea. 
Great is the sport, demanding patience, caution, skill, 

strength and courage. 
The ignorant may scofif at it and speak of it as coarse, 

bloody and brutal. 
Even I, the fly-fisherman, in the days of my darkness 

and folly, have so believed; 
But now I have learned to know better, and so will the 

others also; 
And sportsmen in years to come will rejoice in a new 

pleasure and praise and extol it; 
And some may thank me, and say, "He pointed the 

way and I followed." 

So, with full heart and voice, I sing the first notes of 

my new song. 
The devilfish, the shark, the sawfish, the -stingray, the 

porpoise, the turtle of the sea; 

283 



THE SONG OF THE SPEAR 

The light boat, the silent paddle, the watchful eye, the 
cautious stalk; 

The steady poise, the quick and mighty efifort, the ar- 
row flight of the barbed lance; 

The wild rush of the quarry, the sudden and fierce 
strain on the line; 

The surges, the flying spray, the boat half full of wa- 
ter; 

The long struggle, the hope and fear, the joy of vic- 
tory, the pang of defeat; 

The sport of sports, the pleasure of pleasures, the joy 
of joys, the rapture of raptures; 

The point, the barb, the socket and the shaft, the har- 
poon, the lily iron, the turtle peg, the grains; 

I sing the song of the spear. 




284 




Bull Moose — 2 




Practical Suggestions. 

IG GAME shooting and the best trout, 
salmon and bass fishing can only be 
found far from civilization, and to 
get them one must be able to travel 
until the right place has been found, 
and stay right in that place when it is 
found. To do this one must rely on 
^ himself alone for shelter, food and 
comforts, and therefore must camp out. With proper 
outfit and supplies, good guides, and reasonably philo- 
sophical and contented dispositions, even ladies and 
invalids can camp in the wilderness with perfect com- 
fort, in spite of the worst that wind and weather can 
do; while, without these requisites, existence there will 
certainly be wretched. The very dainty and critical, 
and those who cannot cheerfully accept small annoy- 
ances for the sake of great pleasures, had better stay in 
the city. The novice should always advise with some 
experienced friend before tackling the woods, for there 
are no shops there and every necessary must be pro- 
vided before the start, while anything not essential is 
only so much dead weight to hold you back, and the 
outfit and supplies strictly needed make a total mass 
surprisingly large. 



287 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 

Guides. 

Make your arrangements by letter and well in ad- 
vance, and try to make sure that you get experienced 
and trustworthy men. One guide for each sportsman, 
and a cook beside, is the allowance to ensure entire com- 
fort and convenience. Men are paid three dollars each 
per day on the New Brunswick salmon streams and a 
dollar and a half in Newfoundland. These are ex- 
tremes and two dollars per day is a fair average rate 
elsewhere. Boats or canoes furnished by the guides 
should cost from twenty-five to fifty cents per day each 
and the "sports" of course supply food for the whole 
party. The guides should furnish their own tent and 
blankets. 

Supplies. 

These should be purchased at the nearest point 
convenient to your destination, and packed in flour 
bags for ease of carriage. Everything should be 
stowed in cloth sacks or tin cans, as paper bags are sure 
to break and spill the contents. The following list in- 
cludes all the supplies for my party of four "sports" 
and five guides, during a whole month in Newfound- 
land last fall, and proved entirely adequate and satis- 
factory. The jam, cream and other luxuries could of 
course be dispensed with if necessary, but are very nice 
to have along. The total seems very large, but one's 

288 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 

appetite becomes very active after the first few days, 
and each guide will eat twice as much as a "M'sieu." 
The total cost of the articles in this list, packages and 
freight charges included, was little under one hundred 
dollars. 

250 pounds flour; 
50 pounds corn meal; 
25 pounds bacon; 
25 pounds salt pork; 
15 pounds butter; 
10 pounds lard; 
20 pounds sugar; 

5 pounds table salt; 
4 dozen eggs; 

3 pounds tea; 
10 pounds cofifee; 
10 pounds rice; 
Ya pound pepper; 
30 cans evaporated cream; 

6 cans condensed milk; 
24 jars jam; 

8 pounds baking powder; 

6 packages yeast cakes ; 
10 pounds cream of wheat; 

6 pounds candles; 

I pound matches; 
12 loaves bread; 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 

2 gallons maple syrup; 
I gallon molasses; 

15 pounds onions; 

16 pounds evaporated potatoes; 
5 pounds sea biscuit; 

1 dozen soup tablets; 
Ya pound mustard ; 

2 bars laundry soap; 
2 cakes toilet soap; 

5 pounds cheese; 

1 small bottle Worcestershire sauce; 

2 pounds plug tobacco; 
100 feet quarter-inch rope; 

I ball twine; 

1 clothes line; 

2 packages toilet paper; 

6 towels. 

Total weight about 550 pounds. 

Camp Outfit. 

A proper camp outfit for a party of four would be 
about as follows: 

Two waterproof Baker tents, ()lixjyi feet; 
Four Johnson sleeping bags, Number One (i). 
Four pantasote clothes bags, 15x36 inches; 
Four pantasote ponchos; 
One No. 8 cooking outfit, A. & F. ; 

290 




Mountain Sheep — / 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 

One dish pan; 

One camp baker; 

Three aluminum folding candle lanterns; 

Two small axes. 

Total weight about one hundred and fifty pounds. 

Dealers in sporting goods will furnish complete 
cooking and table outfits, of tin or aluminum, varying 
in number of pieces according to the size of the party. 
A tin outfit for eight persons costs about eight dollars, 
and I have found them very good. Purchase in addi- 
tion two large iron spoons, two small butcher knives, 
a camp baking oven and a dish pan. 

In tents I like best the Baker model, which is 
shaped like a lean-to, highest in front and lowest at the 
back, and can be made perfectly tight at night and 
completely ventilated by day, in which most tents de- 
cidedly fail. It should be made of light waterproof 
duck or waterproof silk, and be fitted with a rope ridge 
and nine-inch sod cloth. Sleeping bags are lighter, 
warmer and handier than blankets and much prefer- 
able, and a small pillow adds greatly to one's comfort. 
Abercrombie & Fitch, of New York, make a specialty 
of furnishing camping outfits, as well as sporting arti- 
cles of all descriptions, and their goods can be de- 
pended upon. 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 

Guns. 

The high velocity, small bore, smokeless powder 
rifles of good size are quite large enough for any game 
on this continent, with the possible exception of grizzly 
bears, and the lightness of gun and cartridges is a great 
advantage. The Winchester rifle is very strong and 
reliable in action, accurate and serviceable. I have 
five of this make of different calibers, and of these par- 
ticularly like the thirty-three, model 1886 take down, 
which is light, handy, accurate and abundantly power- 
ful. Lyman sights are much better than the ordinary 
open sights, especially if one's eyes are not of the best 
or failing a little, as they prevent the tendency to over- 
shoot, which lack of experience or poor eyesight will 
always cause, and are particularly good for catching 
a quick aim; but you must take care to avoid clogging 
the peep sight. 

If you are after big game, leave your shot gun at 
home and take a little twenty-two rifle or target pistol 
for grouse, ducks and other small quarry, and a good 
lot of cartridges for it. Few shells for the large rifle 
are needed, unless you propose to scare the game by 
shooting at a mark. 

Clothing. 
Take stout woolen clothing, light "flannels, a 
sweater or two and plenty of woolen socks, a light rub- 

293 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 

ber coat and boots, soft brown hat, and two pairs of 
stout, easy shoes. Moccasins or moose tops are best for 
stalking. Pack all the personal outfit into a waterproof 
canvas war bag, putting your small articles in a little 
bag which packs inside the big one. 

Fly Dope. 

From June to September first the northern coun- 
try is infested with black flies, punkies and mosquitoes, 
so as to make comfort impossible without protection. 
Most of the advertised preventives are disagreeable to 
use and many of them give very little help. Head nets 
protect, but are a great nuisance. I have found the oil 
of citronella very effective and not at all unpleasant. 
Carry a two-ounce bottle in your pocket and apply 
every hour, and you will not be seriously annoyed by 
flies. A piece of mosquito netting about six feet square, 
hung by the center so as to make a little tent over the 
pillow, will give complete immunity at night and is 
often very necessary. 

Fishing Tackle. 

For trout fishing I should get the following outfit: 

One good split bamboo rod, nine feet six inches 

long and weighing about six ounces. Such a rod is 

light enough for small trout and still, if you have to 

294 



•^«il^(^f^:^w■:fe•.;;-W^^?'MSSifc^^ '-iv . ; ^^^^ 




Mountain Sheep — 2 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 

Stop a big one short to keep him out of snags or brush, 
has backbone enough to do it. 

One rubber multiplying reel; small. 

One Bray fly book, to hold twelve dozen flies. 

Twenty-five yards enamelled waterproof line, 
size F. 

One dozen best leaders, six feet long, six light, 
three heavy, three extra light. 

Ten dozen assorted flies, eights and tens. One 
dozen midges, one dozen fours. 

One square bottom landing net, with long and 
short handles. 

One leader box. One canvas or willow creel. 

Get everything of the best quality. Cheap tackle 
will fail just when you need it most. 

For trolling use small cyclone spinner with Par- 
macheene Belle fly, for trout, and the same spinner 
with scarlet Ibis fly for bass. For lake trout use Skin- 
ner spoon or Buel spinner with blade one and one-half 
inches long, or Archer spinner with good sized min- 
now. 

For bait casting, for bass or other fish of moderate 
size, use a Henshall or other good casting rod, six to 
seven feet long, with fine quality multiplier and forty 
yards of C or D enamelled line. Such a rod is also 
suitable for trolling. The Bristol steel rods are excel- 
lent for bait fishing or surface trolling, but should 

296 




Mountain Sheep — 3 



PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 

never be used in sea fishing, as they rust badly. For 
deep trolling nothing is so effective as annealed copper 
wire. This is awkward to use but gets the spoon or 
bait down where the fish are, and will take twice as 
many fish over the same ground as an ordinary trol- 
ling line. Two hundred feet of gauge twenty-two is 
just about right. 

In General. 

Go light; cut off every unnecessary ounce of 
weight. Don't break the game laws. Take no whis- 
key. Be patient and cheerful if luck or weather go 
against you. Stick to it and keep your temper. To 
cry or swear over your troubles does not help any, 
while to laugh at them makes them much less impor- 
tant. Understand that big game shooting is hard 
work, and be prepared to tramp long distances over 
rough ground, run when necessary, get up early and 
stay up late, and take sunshine and storm as they 
come. Even where moose and deer are most abundant 
you will find very few tied to trees for your con- 
venience. 




Horn Measurements 

Moose — 

Maximum spread, 55j>2 inches 

Round horn, 7^ " 

Length of antler, 38 '' 

Palms, 8x25 '' 

Front palms, 8x12 " 

Points, 19 

Shot near Whitefish Bay, Lake Temagami, On- 
tario, October, 1902. 

The points on these horns are unusually long and 
the front palms are large, distinct, exactly matched 
and each bears three points of about nine inches in 
length. 

Elk— 

Length on curve, 54 inches 

Round horn, 8^ " 

Spread, 36 *' 

Points, 19 

Shot in the Elkhead Mountains, Routt County, 
Colorado, September, 1894; a very heavy, regular and 
handsome head. 
Caribou — 

Length on curve, 38 inches 

Round horn, 6^ 

Spread, 32 " 

Points, 36 

299 



HORN MEASUREMENTS 

Shot in Newfoundland, September, 1903. These 
antlers are good weight, very regular and well pal- 
mated. The front paddles are large, well matched and 
the points interlock. 

Blacktail or Mule Deer — 

Length on curve, 18^2 inches 

Round horn, 3^ " 

Spread, 18 " 

Points, 10 

Shot in Elkhead Mountains, September, 1894. A 
small regular head. 

Virginia Deer — 

Length on curve, 22 inches 

Round horn, 4 " 

Spread, i8>^ " 

Points, 8 
Shot at Meacham Lake, New York, October, 
1896. A large and regular head. 

Mountain Sheep — 

Length on curve, 38 inches 

Round base of horn, 16^2 " 

Spread, ij^A " 

Given to the writer by his father, John Strong 
Newberry, M. D., LL. D., late of Columbia College, 
New York. 

A very large and beautiful head, with perfect 
horns. 

300 




Fifty Pound Kin^fish 



My Biggest Fish 




PECKLED TROUT— 

Weight, 3 lbs. 15 oz. 
Sault St. Marie Rapids, August, 
1 88 1. Six oz. lancewood fly rod, 
Minnow bait. 
Black Bass, Small mouth — 

Weight, 5 lbs. 4 oz. 

Length, 21^ inches. 

Small lake near Kippewa in Northern Quebec, 
Sept., 1901, Six oz. split bamboo fly rod, short tip, 
scarlet Ibis fly on small spinner. 

Salmon— 

Weight, 6 pounds. 

Hinds Brook, Newfoundland, September, 1903. 
Six ounce split bamboo fly rod. No. 8 Abbey fly. 

Pike— 

Length, 42 inches. 

Weight, 14 pounds. 

Meacham Lake, August, 1902. Six ounce split 
bamboo fly rod, short tip, number five Skinner spoon. 

The pike shown in picture, page one hundred and 
fifty-three, was caught by Arthur Cleveland Newberry 
in Batchawaung Bay, Lake Superior, September, 1902, 
and weighed thirty-five pounds. 



303 



MY BIGGEST FISH 

Grayling — 

Length, i6 inches. 

Weight, i^ pounds. 

Manistee River, Michigan, August, 1900. Six 
ounce fly rod. No. 12 fly. 

Blue fish — 

Weight, 12^4 pounds. 

Outside Sandy Hook, June, 1876. Trolling squid. 

Barracuda — 

Length, 4 feet, 6 inches. 

Weight, 30 pounds. 

Alligator Light, Florida, January, 1905. Tarpon 
tackle, cut bait, a very slender specimen. 

Amberjack — 

Length, 4 feet, 3 inches. 

Weight, 52>4 pounds. 

Nassau. Tackle as above. 

Grouper — 

Length, 3 feet, 8 inches. 

Weight (estimated), 75 pounds. 

Alligator Light. Tarpon tackle, cut bait. 

Spanish Mackerel — 

Length, 2 feet, 8 inches. 

Weight, 12 pounds. 

Nassau. Same tackle. 

304 




White tat I Buck — / 



/ 



?iS/v^ 



MY BIGGEST FISH " ' j-(^ 

Kingfish (Cero)— 1^-1) 

Length, 4 feet, 9 inches. 

Weight, 55 pounds. 
Nassau. Tarpon tackle. 

Shark (on rod) — 

Length, 6 feet, 9 inches. 

Weight (estimated), 100 pounds. 
Nassau. Tarpon tackle. 




THE END 



306 



OCl 21 19013 



